TOUGH-MINDED LEADERSHIP
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Tough-minded Leadership
Batten, Joe D.
AMACOM Books
0814477615
9780814477618
9780585028101
English
Leadership, Management.
1989
HD57.7.B38 1989eb
658.4/092
Leadership, Management.
Ten Commandments of Expective Leadership
1.
I will tell no one. But I will expect much.
2.
The truth is the only thing that sets you free.
3.
I will diligently expect to be what I expect of others.
4.
I will unleash, unshackle, and be proud of my enthusiasm.
5. I will search for some positive strengths in every person. I will
expect each person's best.
6.
I will share life, love, and laughter with my team.
7.
I know that expectations are the key to all happenings.
8. I know that the best control is a clearly and mutually understood
expectation.
9.
10.
I will sculpt a vision and plan boldly.
I will live my plan. I will lead my team!
I see myself as an instrument of human progress.
TOUGH-MINDED LEADERSHIP
JOED. BATTEN
amacom
AMERICAN MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION
This book is available at a special discount when ordered in bulk
quantities.
For information, contact Special Sales Department,
AMACOM, a division of American Management Association,
1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Batten, Joe D.
Tough-minded leadership/Joe D. Batten.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8144-5901-3
ISBN 0-8144-7761-5 (pbk.)
1. Leadership. 2. Management. I. Title.
HD57.7.B38 1989
88-48023
658. 4'092dc19
©1989 AMACOM, a division of American Management Association,
New York.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of AMACOM, a division of
American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY
10019.
First AMACOM paperback edition 1991.
Printing number
11
Page v
FOREWORD
by H. Ross Perot
During the early years of EDS, the company was small, had little
capital, and was forced to compete head on with IBM. The EDS team
offset these disadvantages by having clearly stated philosophies of
how we would work togetherand win.
These philosophies were carefully explained to each new person
joining EDS. We wanted these philosophies to be so distinct that they
would strongly attract the person to the companyor cause him not to
join because he disagreed with our values.
As EDS grew, it became more difficult to review these philosophies
with each new person. During this period, I was given a copy of Joe
Batten's book, Tough-Minded Management. As I read it, I realized that
this book was exactly what EDS needed. For many years, every
person joining EDS was given a copy of Tough-Minded Management,
with a handwritten note from me. The end result was a successful
company, generally recognized as the finest in its field, and with an
unmatched record for competing against and beating the giants.
Joe's new book, Tough-Minded Leadership, clearly, directly, and
forcefully describes how to build a strong, unified team and optimize
the potential of the people within the company.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to build a great
Page vi
organization. Success or failure will depend on the leader's ability to
motivate the people, keep a results-oriented climate, build a unified
team that builds the highest-quality products in its field, and looks
forward to taking on all competitors in fair, open competitionand
beating them soundly!
H. Ross Perot
Chairman of the Board
The Perot Group, Inc.
Page vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Attempting to acknowledge even a minute portion of the "Battenbuilders" who have given me so much for so many years is a
formidable challenge. During the thirty-plus years of our company,
BBH&S, literally hundreds of colleagues have contributed more than I
can begin to acknowledge. Our consulting and training clients
throughout the world provided many opportunities and privileges that
have helped enrich Tough-Minded Leadership. Their exacting
requirements help ensure that all the "theory" described in the book is
researched, tested, and validated.
The original team that made up the euphemistically titled Batten &
Associates in 1957 consisted of my wife, Jean, and me. Leonard
Hudson joined us in 1958, and Hal Batten and Jim Swab in 1959, and
we became Batten, Batten, Hudson & Swab, Inc. These men reflected
the very highest standards of integrity, service, and commitment. To
Jean, Hal, Jim, and Leonard goes my heartfelt gratitude. Other stars in
the BBH&S firmament include Mary Roelofs, my loyal, gifted, and
indispensable assistant, John Wade, Arthur Bauer, Dennis Murphy,
Bob Gappa, Sharon Ward, Joyce Sullivan, Shirley Winner, Frank
Russell, Don Bell, and Philip Pletcher. Other management
professionals whose influence helped mold my philosophy and hence
this book include such outstanding practitioners as Ross
Page viii
Perot, Berkley Bedell, George Morrisey, Robert Randolph, Don
Kirkpat-rick, and Donald Alstadt.
I would like to thank Marry Stuckey for her talented, excellent
editing. Thanks also to AMACOM Associate Editor Barbara
Horowitz, Developmental Editor, Eva Weiss, and Senior Acquisitions
and Planning Editor, Adrienne Hickey.
In unique, special, and blessed ways my daughters, Gail and Wendy,
have given me more insights, discoveries, and affirmation than a
dozen fathers have the right to expect. They played catalytic roles in
shaping my values and thus our company's philosophy, which
stimulated us to pioneer in several areas, including training women for
equality in the workplace and all other dimensionsto the tune of some
3,600 public seminars in 1980 alone.
These are some of the people who helped me discover that a tough
mind and a tender heart are one. Above all, Jean's caring critiques and
candor continue to have a profound impact on all that I am. Her
excellent and devoted editorial work on this book was superb. She is
in a very real sense the co-author, but prefers to retain a low profile.
After forty vibrant years together, it is my privilege to dedicate this
book to her.
Page ix
INTRODUCTION:
Excellence and Beyond
When Tough-Minded Management was published in 1963, we all
lived in a vastly different world. "Management" was thought to be an
amalgam of procedures, processes, materials, and methods. People
were too often perceived as necessary items of overhead. Equality in
the workplace for women and minorities was scarcely mentioned.
When I first used words such as passion, vision, and excellence, most
American managers could not see their relationship to the world of
businessbut the Japanese could!
To American business leaders, the world seemed predictable; they
could develop five-and ten-year projections with a good measure of
confidence. Then, gradually the tempo of change accelerated.
Awareness of the global community increased. And with it an uneasy
feeling began to pervade boardrooms and executive offices, the
feeling that something wasn't working all that well in American
business. Slowly the understanding began to build that the leader was
part of the problemand a major part of the solution.
In the years since, much has happened in American industryand much
of it is good. The emphasis on "excellent companies" is a major
achievement. But there is more we must do. Some requires a renewed
focus on
Page x
"old" ideas, which is why readers may find some of the key sections
from Tough-Minded Management repeated here. In addition, we badly
need to commit more resources to the growth and development of
leaders as fully functioning persons.
My focus in this book is on the methods, procedures, processes,
techniques, and many other overt manifestations of the tough-minded
leader. But much more important, I address how to target and
stimulate fundamental changes in the mind and values of this crucial
individual. How the leader views, perceives, and responds to life as a
whole, in terms of changed behavior, is my concern here.
Thirty years with a company that works with virtually all kinds of
organizations worldwide have convinced me that when the emotional,
intellectual, and spiritual componentsthe attitudesare right, the actions
are right.
In a world where exponential adaptive change is called for, where
what is new today is obsolete tomorrow, we must place an absolute
premium on training minds above all. If the minds of leaders are
tough, strong, open, resilient, and hungry for positive innovation, true
greatness lies ahead. Tough-mindedness takes much more than mental
agility. Tenacity, stamina, clarity, discipline, and depththese are key
requisites for the mentally tough executive of tomorrow.
Recently, I was interviewed by a very impressive MBA candidate. Her
questions were pertinent and penetrating, and did an excellent job of
zeroing in on the key concepts. Because it seems to encapsulate most
of what I consider the truly important points of this book, I believe
that interview makes a fine introduction to the book as a whole.
Q.: Today, we see a greater emphasis on management style and
philosophy. What, in your opinion, is the newest development?
A.: Leadership by expectation. It's a new style of leadership, one that
requires fundamental changes at a very deep level in management
attitudes. Basically, it means this: we become what we expect. There is
a direct link between what we expect from ourselves and our team
members, and what we and they actually achieve in terms of results
that contribute directly to the company's profits.
Q.: How does leadership by expectation differ from traditional
management concepts now used by American industry?
A.: The majority of managers today still manage by directive: they
tell, push, drive. They pigeonhole people into boxes on an
organization chart. Leadership by expectation expects the best from
each person and gives them goals they can reach if they stretch. Then
it holds them accountable for results, rewarding performance that
contributes to corporate goals. At the
Page xi
same time, leaders set the example by their own attitudes. They give
their people a model to follow. There is no separation between what
they say and what they do.
Q.: Where does leadership by expectation differ from management by
objectives, or MBO?
A.: It goes beyond MBO. To get the best results, you must do more
than merely establish goals and objectives. You have to get your
people involved first so they will make a commitment to those goals.
Q.: What does it take to get this kind of result?
A.: Leaders must be willing to take the time to sit down and develop a
real understanding of the drives and ambitions of each team member
and to encourage that potential in each one. Then they will get the
synergistic effect they need to increase the productivity of the team.
Q.: How do a leader's expectations create a climate for results?
A.: When the majority of your people realize that the best way to
achieve their own personal goals is to perform in such a way that
theycontribute to company profits, then and only then will you have a
motivational climate for results. Control, you see, does not come from
the outside. It is the self-control that comes from enlightened,
involved, and committed people working together as a team. The
difference between ordinary light and a potent laser beam is the
degree of focus and intensity.
Q.: What does this require of a leader?
A.: It requires a certain toughness. Expectations are far stronger than
directives, and they achieve much greater results. Yet for many
managers, it is easier to give orders than develop people. It takes a
tough-minded leader to lead by expectations. It requires courage to
take risks, to change attitudes, to stick your neck out and walk in front
of the flock.
Q.: How does this management philosophy work in today's high-technology world?
A.: Well, look at IBM, one of the most profitable companies in the
world. They use leadership by expectation, building on strengths
rather than focusing on people's weaknesses. They have discovered
the tough-minded principle that our strengths are our tools! In A
Business and Its Beliefs: The Ideas That Helped Build IBM, Thomas
Watson, Jr., says that IBM owes its success to the belief that ''the basic
philosophy, spirit, and drive of an organization have far more to do
with its relative achievements than do technological or economic
resources, organizational structure, innovation and timing. Our most
important belief," he adds, "is our respect for the individual. This is a
simple concept but in IBM it occupies a major portion of management
time. We devote more effort to it than anything else.''1 IBM knows
that true leadership is of, by, about, and for people.
1. (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI).
Page xii
Q.: Why is it important to build on a person's strengths?
A.: This is the heart of leading by expectation, and it is crucial. All too
often we tend to judge people, pointing out all the things they do
wrong. We should, in fact, evaluate them by searching for their strong
points and helping them develop these further. This does not mean
that we ignore their areas of weakness; we acknowledge them, but we
do not focus all our attention on them.
Q.: How does a leader build on strengths?
A.: First, identify each person's strengths, both existing and potential.
Where can you use them to help you achieve departmental goals?
Then, when you are setting performance standards, challenge your
people to meet stretching goals based on these strengths. Reinforce
these strengthsthat's what positive reinforcement is all about. And
expect excellence from them. Hold them accountable for results and
reward them for the results they achieve. Continuous feedback and
compensation based on results will foster a climate where each person
uses self-control to improve performance. Also, be sure to give earned
praise unstintingly; there is nothing more truly motivational.
Q.: How can a leader increase performance levels?
A.: Performance is based on people. Performance will improve only
when people improve. Well-written performance standards are
certainly expectations, but they must be specific. They must define the
results required, and in terms that can be measured. And they must
progressively provide more "stretching" goals to give people
something to reach for. They provide a valid basis for truly positive
reinforcement.
Q.: How do leaders' attitudes affect the performance of their people?
A.: As leaders we have a choice. We can mold and compress a person
to fit a job that has been carefully tied into other jobs. Or we can
encourage people to expand their capabilities and become part of a
dynamically growing organization. We can drive, or we can lead. We
can compress, repress, and depress by pushingor we can stretch,
exemplify, and lead.
Q.: In other words, you expect a great deal not only from your team
but from yourself as well?
A.: That's right. True leaders know that real authority rests not in their
position in the management hierarchy. It rests in the person, by the
very example set daily. I challenge managers today to manage as
though they held no rank, as though they had to depend on the quality
of their ideas and the example they set to have people follow them. If
you, as leader, held no title, would your people still follow you? What
you are speaks more loudly than what you say.
Q.: We have to think big, then? We have to offer people a chance to
feel a part of something greater?
A.: Absolutely. All too often, we underestimate people. Masters of
mo-
Page xiii
tivation, however, know that the single most important factor in
leadership is to inspire commitment to a cause greater than self. The
so-called leader who pushes, drives, and compresses is out of date and
thoroughly counterproductive. The real leader encourages people to
grow, innovate, and thrive. Pushers and drivers are a dime a dozen.
Business needs real leaders as never before.
CONTENTS
1. THE NEXT DECADE BECKONS
1
The Difference Between a Leader and a Manager
2
The Customer Is Number-One Priority
2
A Leader's Toolbox
3
People First, Technology Second
4
Performance Is the Alpha and Omega
5
Resilient Minds and Open Hearts
7
Are You a Leader?
7
2. THE ANATOMY OF LEADERSHIP
Strong Leadership Enhances Productivity
9
10
From Glittering Generalities to Tough-Minded Specifies 11
The Core of Tough-Minded Leadership
14
U.S. Leaders Speak Out
14
3. HIGH PERFORMANCE: THE POSSIBLE DREAM
17
Build Corporate Cultures From Your "P" Pyramid
18
Page xvi
How to Be Tough: A Case Study
20
Performance Is All That Matters
24
4. REVERSE THE G FORCESPIVOTAL LEADERSHIP 26
Positive and Negative G Forces
27
Cybernetic Circle of Leadership
27
5. A NEW "SYSTEMS" APPROACH TO
MANAGEMENT
42
MBE: Management by Expectations
43
A System of Expective Leadership
45
6. MASTERS OF STRENGTHS DEPLOYMENT
52
Organizing by Strengths
53
An Exercise for Identifying Strengths
54
The Renewal Organization
56
Building Team Synergy
57
7. GREAT CHANGEMASTERS ARE GREAT
COMMUNICATORS
59
Face-to-Face Communication Tools
60
Communicating From Strength: A Case Study in
Communication Styles
64
8. THE NEW ENTREPRENEUR
68
Action Steps for Entrepreneurial Success
69
Your Tough-Minded Business Plan
72
Are Entrepreneurs Different From Corporate Executives?74
9. LEADERSHIP AND POWER
77
New Definitions of Power and Control
79
The New Power Tools
80
The Power of Words
82
The True Nature of Power
82
10. ENHANCING INNOVATION
85
Innovation Starts at the Top
85
Innovation in Action
86
How to Squelch Innovation
91
11. NUTS AND BOLTS OF INNOVATION AND
PRODUCTIVITY
92
Quality Circles for America
93
Common Questions About Quality Circles
94
Page xvii
Keys to Success With Quality Circles
97
More Answers
98
Moving to the Next Level: Possibility Teams
99
12. BUILD AND MOTIVATE YOUR TEAM
106
Attitude Is Everything
107
Practical Tips for Team Builders
108
The Team Concept
112
The Truth About Motivation
113
A Journey of Self-Discovery
113
13. LEADERSHIP IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 122
Integrity That Pervades and Suffuses
123
Become a Big Person
126
Lead and Manage Change
127
Values Manifesto for Tough-Minded Leaders
129
14. LEADERSHIP BY RENEWAL
133
The Need for Significance
134
The Seven Phases of the System
134
Beyond Organizational Development to Organizational 139
Renewal
15. LEAD BY EXAMPLE
141
The Power of Transcendent Goals
142
LoveIs It Too Big for You?
145
16. THE G FORCES OF THE FUTURE
150
Headlamps for Tomorrow's Mines
151
Some Thoughts About the Future
154
A Heyday for Visionary Architects
157
17. TOOLING FOR CHANGE
Thirty-Five Tough-Minded Conversions
18. THE POWER OF PASSIONATE LEADERSHIP
159
160
174
The Cybernetic Circle of Expective Growth
175
Lead With Passion
185
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, the G Forces Beckon
185
Page xviii
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: SITUATIONAL ASSESSMENT
GUIDEFROM MACRO TO MICRO
187
189
G-Forces Analysis
191
Are You Harnessing Technology for Optimum
Information Reporting?
202
APPENDIX B: THE TOUGH-MINDED
LEADERFIVE POSITIVE G FORCES
209
APPENDIX C: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHERTHE
POSITIVE G-FORCE CLIMATE
211
GLOSSARY OF TOUGH-MINDED TERMS
215
THE NEW LEADER'S BOOKSHELF
227
INDEX
231
TOUGH-MINDED LEADERSHIP
Page 1
CHAPTER 1
THE NEXT DECADE BECKONS
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present and future.
As our circumstances are new, we must think anew, and act anew.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The decade of the 1980s has witnessed a volatile series of changes in
the way leadership is viewed in America.
Increasingly, it is moving beyond the level of craft to the level of
profession. What we need now is a commitment to further elevate it to
the level of art. Now, as never before, we need a breed of leaders
committed to a new, tough-minded paradigm: the art of leadership.
Leadership must be our first national priority.
A number of books have appeared in recent years in which the current
practices of successful executives are chronicled. In this book I
propose to focus on leaders as individuals, and to share suggestions,
insights, and tools to guide and stimulate those who aspire to
exemplify the word excellence.
Page 2
Successful, productive organizations are made possible only by
successful, productive individuals working together, with confidence,
commitment, synergy, and joy.
As we look searchingly ahead, the need for certain transitions
becomes clear. There are nine crucial changes that must occur if
American business is to move again into the vanguard of world
commerce. I present them here as a kind of "preview"; they are key
themes in this text, and I'll be talking about them throughout the book.
From
To
Competing with other
nations
Competing with our own
possibilities
2. Mere number
crunching
Intuitive sensing, feeling,
sculpting
3. Rigid, static practices Mental agility and suppleness
4. Directiveness
Expectiveness
5. Passive protectionism Passionate stretching
6. High tech/high touch
High touch/high tech
7. Glittering generalities Tough-minded action steps
8. Mental flabbiness
Mental toughness
9. Frozen cultures
Organic cultures
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LEADER AND A MANAGER
Managers abound but leaders are still at a premium. Managers
manage inventories, supplies, and data. They are numbers crunchers.
Leaders catalyze, stretch, and enhance people. They provide
transcendent goals, creating a motive-ational climate.
Managers push and direct. Leaders pull and expect. Leaders are
exhilarated by identifying and enhancing their people's strengths.
Despite the many books on management published in recent years, the
MBA factories continue to turn out graduates woefully deficient in
leadership insights, skills, and hands-on tools. Taking refuge behind
reams of data is still appallingly common, but it is no substitute for
true leadership.
The very nature of management must be perceived in a new way. In
practical reality, management is an ever-changing, ever-dynamic
system of interacting minds. In the futureand the future is almost
heremanaging minds and spirits will be the name of the game.
THE CUSTOMER IS NUMBER-ONE PRIORITY
The counterpuncher, the reactor, is never world class, whether in
sports, politics, or business. Leaders are committed above all to
customer sensitivity, skillfully and continuously determining and
assessing the wants, needs, and possibilities of their current and
potential customers. They listen reg-
Page 3
ularly and intently. They may even be somewhat manic about it. By
word, precept, and example they will constantly send messages to
their teams that the customer is the alpha and omega of their business,
the number-one priority at all times.
This must go far beyond empty rhetoric and breast beating. Uttering
pious pronouncements about being ''dedicated to service" and
"committed to excellence" is not enough. In fact, such claims are
becoming counterproductive in many organizations where action
plans are conspicuous by their absence. Rhetoric without
demonstrable followthrough creates disillusionment in customers and
employees alike.
Leaders must ensure that all segments of the organization are
consistently, relentlessly responsive to the finest and most sensitive
information from customers. All bulletin boards, meeting agenda,
memoranda, press releases must reflect this focus. Performanceappraisal criteria must be built in so that all rewards are related
squarely to this emphasis. Evaluation systems and procedures must be
developed around the notion that the relative importance of each
position will be tied directly to impact on customers. The highest
salary grades will be for those jobs that have the most powerful
impact on the customer.
Robert Lookabaugh, chairman of Eye Max, Inc., a nationwide
consortium of optometrists, is pioneering methods that use computer
technology to assess customer needs and possibilities so thoroughly at
point of sale that this information becomes virtually the sole basis for
strategy, tactics, and decisions. One of the great new leaders, he is
illustrating how the traditional concept of competition is becoming
secondary, or even tertiary. The customer is first. The excellent
organization of tomorrow can base all its competitive strategy on this
approach. The traditional competition then has to react and
counterpunch, tactics that usually result in "also-ran" performance and
diminished profits.
Lookabaugh says, "Our incredible strength is that our clients are the
on-site connection to the essence of the business. They are the
foundation or anchor. We can focus clearly on goals that do not
change; satisfying the customer remains constant."
Truly excellent companies compete with themselveswith their own
self-generated objectives and possibilities.
A LEADER'S TOOLBOX
Tomorrow's leaders will be, above all, mentally tooled for the decades
ahead. Pushed and driven organizations will certainly lose out to those
that are led and stretched. We must release old habits and consign
them to the past. The cold, hard, rigid driver is out. The leading,
stretching, expective, intuitive leader plugged into productive, futureoriented attitudes (which I call positive G forces, and which I'll define
further later on) is in. The
Page 4
orderly, antiseptic climate is out. The yeasty, fermentive, and volatile
climate is in.
In the vernacular of sheepherding, the opposite of the leader, who
walks in front of the flock, is the all-too-common driver, who walks
behind the flock. Such a "leader" is no leader at all; rather, he or she is
a pusher who compresses, represses, and depresses the people in the
flock. Such an obsolete manager tends to use phrases such as value
driven, customer driven, market driven. These are regressive forces
binding us to the past.
The true leader believes in, teaches, and exemplifies the concept of "led"people led, value led, data led, customer led. At a premium,
always, is the confidence, the strengths orientation needed to proact,
to walk in front of the flock. These are the forces pulling the team into
the future.
Change can frighten, depress, and paralyze, or it can challenge,
stretch, and enrich. Since we can't avoid it, our only reasonable option
is to anticipate it and prepare for it. The new leader will cultivate
flexibility, mental suppleness, and resilience. Rigid thinking and
defensive action have no place in the toolbox of the new leader. Peak
performerswinnersare motivated by passionate commitment to a
transcendent vision, dream, or mission.
Winners and losers alike carry a toolbox on their shoulders.
Increasingly, tough-minded, visioneering executives will fully
comprehend that in the Age of the Mind, the tools we use have no
chemical composition. Ideas are our tools. Ideas and thoughts are the
catalyst of all innovation, all action, all knowledge, all information, all
service, all bottom-line achievements. The race for inner space is truly
the number-one priority of the tough-minded leader of the future.
Thus our toolboxes can contain blunt implements (directives) that
bruise and abrade, or exquisite precision instruments (expectives) that
build and enrich. Careful defense strategies will not be sufficient for
the volatile world that lies ahead. Calculated openness and
vulnerability are key parts of the new tough-minded wave.
Responsiveness to the customer and the willingness to risk and dare
will be the keys to all unusual success stories.
PEOPLE FIRST, TECHNOLOGY SECOND
Many high-tech companies aspire to be as successful as IBM, but few
of them have IBM's clear vision about the relative value of people and
technology. High technology is truly a marvelous tool, but it is only a
tool.
In 1969, in a seminar for IBM people in Carmel, California, I read
from a pithy book called A Business and Its Beliefs, written by
Thomas Watson, Jr., former CEO of IBM. In the book, Watson flatly
states that IBM is not a technical company but a people company.
More time, money, and total resources are invested in human
resources than anything else. As a result, he says, IBM's technology
and profitability were "satisfactory"surely the understatement of the
decade.
Page 5
Since that 1969 seminar, a number of the participants have become
leaders of Silicon Valley companies. Sadly, most of them have
focused on technology first and people second. Their bottom lines and
eventual mergers have reflected that myopia. In seeking to emulate
IBM's success, they missed the crucial point completely.
I suggest a number of specific steps to ensure people primacy at all
times:
1. Review all key items of "yeast" in your corporate culture,
starting with your policy and procedure manual. Does every statement
and proviso enhance "people" possibilities?
Do your performance-appraisal and job-evaluation procedures
illustrate "people primacy"?
3.
Do programs, practices, and facilities reflect this emphasis?
4. Do all your procedures reflect an emphasis on human strengths
rather than weaknesses?
5. Are all performance standards worded expectively rather than
directively?
6. Are you an expector or director? Directors are a dime a dozen.
Expectors are at a premium and in high demand.
John Naisbitt's popular term high tech/high touch seems to at least
suggest that technology is first and people are secondary. It is
important to reverse this emphasis. The tough-minded leader always
gives high touch primacy over high tech. In short, people
firsttechnology second.
For mentally flabby or hard-minded managers who currently believe
technology is primary and people secondary, the future will
increasingly provide frustration, diffieulty, failure, and heartbreak.
Tough-minded visioneers are committed to reversing these priorities.
They will insist that while new technology can yield marvelous
breakthroughs, it must be viewed as subordinate to people, as servant
rather than master.
Interestingly, high technology will achieve its greatest gains when it is
deployed within the understanding that all technology, and the virtual
miracles in knowledge and information it can provide, are of, by,
about, and for people.
PERFORMANCE IS THE ALPHA AND OMEGA
The tough-minded leader will clearly perceive that human effort can
and must be focused like a laser beam. There is real dignity in
knowing that you are expected to do your best and that your best is the
sum of your current and potential strengths at a given point. Just as
particles of light in the usual diffused form have nothing like the
practical value of a laser
Page 6
beam, which is fused, focused, centered, intensified light, a person
very much needs this same integration and focus.
Harold Geneen, former chairman of AT&T, supplies excellent focus:
Performance is what it's all aboutthere is no other. Performance alone is
the best measure of confidence, competence, and courage. Only
performance gives you the freedom to grow as yourself.1
PERFORMANCE, MARRIOTT STYLE
J. Willard Marriott, chairman of the board of the enormously successful
hotel chain, was recently asked: "How do you manage to be fair and nice
with people and yet demand excellence from them?"
"Well, it's tough-minded management, which basically says that you treat
people right and fair and decent, and in return they give their all for you."
Executive Excellence, April, 1986, p. 5.
Arthur Bauer is truly an exemplar of the great new leader. He is
founder, president, and CEO of American Media, Inc., which creates
training and educational media for business and distributes its
products worldwide. Bauer described his philosophy in a personal
letter to me:
I believe that the secrets of life (and motivation) can be summed up in one
wordgrowth. That's the secret. That's why we're all here, to help something
grow. Managers must take the responsibility to help ourselves, our
families, our companies, our departments, our employees, and even our
grass to grow.
There is really only one reason why each and every team member is
working in a company and organization, and that is to meet their own goals
and objectives, which are directly related to growth for themselves and
their application of helping something else grow, be it a client, a customer,
their department, or another team member. And I guess it all boils down to
that famous four-letter word, love. If every goal and action is motivated
and initiated from love, we simply can't go wrong.2
1. Geneen with Alvin Moscow, Managing (New York: Doubleday, 1984).
2. Used with permission of Arthur Bauer.
Page 7
Perhaps the finest thing you can give another person is the gift of an
excellent and stretching expectation; based on a never-ending search
for his or her existing and potential strengths. Caring enough to expect
the very best from people empowers their dreams and dignity.
RESILIENT MINDS AND OPEN HEARTS
What some have characterized as "flabby management" is indeed
widely practiced in this country. The answer to flabbiness, however, is
not hardness or knee-jerk reactions using compressive force. Using
rank as the first expedient has no place in the toolbox of the toughminded leader.
We must place a premium on developing the kind of sensing and
intuitive skills that can flow only from a mind that is tough, resilient,
open, and questing, and from a heart that truly loves all customers and
all members of the team. Resilience is the central quality from which
all other growth will flow!
In a paper titled "Toward a Theory of Creativity," the psychologist
Carl Rogers says:
The creative (intuitive) person is open to his own experiences. It means a
lack of rigidity and the permeability of boundaries in concepts, beliefs,
perceptions and hypotheses. It means the ability to receive much
conflicting ambiguity where ambiguity exists. It means the ability to
receive much conflicting information without forcing closure on the
situation.
Note my emphasis on certain words in this quotation.
Carl Jung, the great contemporary of Freud, described a key
component of the tough mind when he said of intuitive responses: "It
is a function that explores the unknown, senses possibilities and
implications which may not be readily apparent."
ARE YOU A LEADER?
Leaders of the future should ask themselves these questions:
Am I just listening to my people or do I really hear? Listening
helps develop dialogue (two or more people engaged in monologues).
Really hearing requires shared meaning and shared
understandingwhich is my definition of real communication.
What is primary here, people or technology?
How effectively could I lead if I had no organizational authority?
Would they follow me and do what I ask if I had to depend on the
quality of my ideas expressed through my example?
Page 8
Am I really committed to discovering the liberating and synergistic
power of love? When Vince Lombardi was asked the secret of the
Green Bay Packers' success, he replied, "These guys love each other!"
Do I fully understand the enormous difference between hardminded-ness and tough-mindedness?
The new leaders will be transformers, changers. The new leaders will
dare to dreamand then put muscle into those dreams.
In the words of Thomas R. Horton:
Successful chief executives seek balanced advice but still need a
perceptual objectivity to make a balanced decision. Possessing the will to
decide, they are tough-minded, willing to live with their decisions,
regardless of the result. While they insist on tough-mindedness in their
people, they also hold themselves fully accountable for the consequences
of their own decisions, right or wrong. In short, they exercise decisiveness
informed by balanced judgment.3
3. "What Works for Me": Sixteen CEOs Talk About Their Careers and
Commitments (New York: Random House, 1986).
Page 9
CHAPTER 2
THE ANATOMY OF LEADERSHIP
The leader who expects his people to perform their best will achieve the
greatest results.
Truly excellent companies, such as IBM, Marriott, and Electronic
Data Systems, have known for years that corporate values and beliefs
should be stretching, evocative, and transcendent. They pull, rather
than push. They fuse and focus energy and commitment. They vitalize
and energize. They unhitch from the negative forces of the past and
plug into the positive forces of the future.
The times cry out for quantum leaps in:
Renewal
Communication
Warmth
Sharing
Caring
Loving
Emotional vulnerability
Leading
Page 10
Tough and tenacious will
Stretching
Motivation
Expecting the best, and positively reinforcing it
Intuitive thinking
The wonderful thing is that at last, after much research and observation, we
are able to perceive that such values and beliefs in action are not just nicesounding humanistic words, but productivity imperatives. It is time for us
to mobilize this arsenal of tough-minded values more effectively and forge
them into systems for new levels of productivity and innovation. If we do
that, we can again become leaders of the world in productivity and profit!
STRONG LEADERSHIP ENHANCES PRODUCTIVITY
There is an abundance of literature available on the basic elements of the
management processhow to plan, organize, execute, coordinate, and
control. By and large, however, American managers have seemed to shy
away from the very elements that the Japanese have used with such success
in their ascendancy to world leadership in productivity.
Students of Japanese productivity methods have identified four emphases at
the very heart of their approach:
1. Spiritual valuesan integral part of organization, philosophy, policies,
methods, and practices
2. Self-confidencea basic asset that fuels innovation, energy, and
creativity
3. Fitnessphysical, mental, and spiritual, and the programs needed to
achieve it
4. Happinessstimulated by fitness, confidence, involvement, and group
activities
It would be tragic indeed if the United States backs away from the full
deployment of these elements just when pragmatic experience is revealing
that they are the "secret" of high productivity and morale. The knowledge
is available. At a premium in this country have been the tenacity, wisdom,
and courage necessary to apply this knowledge. Another necessary focus,
as I'll say again and again, is that excellent leadership is not value driven
but rather value led.
Do you care enough about your people to search out their strengths, their
best possibilitiesand expect their best? If you do, there are some
Page 11
specific things you can do to foster a climate of heightened
productivity. We'll call them
Eight Steps to Increasing Team Productivity
1. Identify the strengths that all team members show in work
situations. Ask them to list their own. Tie strengths directly to job
contributions.
2. Classify these strengths in three categories: decision making or
evaluation, problem solving or analysis, and communications or
"people" skills. Rate proficiency in each area. Where is more training
needed?
3. Develop these strengths through challenging assignments that
stretch, combined with outside courses.
4. Assign strengths where they will benefit the company the most.
Do not be boxed in by traditional roles. First look at your goals, then
decide who can best help you meet them. Move decisively to establish
a computerized strengths bank (more about this later in the book).
5. Set high expectations through performance objectives, mutually
agreed to, and hold each person accountable for results. Blend
personal goals with corporate goals to achieve a synergistic effect.
6. Measure strengths and monitor progress made toward goals.
Recognize improvement, no matter how small.
7. Use feedback and self-control by each person to keep
performance levels high. Compensate people directly for the results
they produce.
8.
Give complete primacy to strong and focused minds.
FROM GLITTERING GENERALITIES TO TOUGH-MINDED
SPECIFICS
How realistic is all this? Is it possible to practice a style of leadership
based on the belief that a tough mind and a tender heart are one? Yes!
The compleat leader of the future will possess a synergistic blend of
both.
Do your people know exactly what you expect of them? Have you
clearly defined policies and performance standards? Do your
performance appraisals help them improve through constructive
criticism, identification of strengths, and areas for further training?
Start with a rigorous review of all policies and procedures, to ensure
that your organization is value led rather than value driven. Provide
training programs and individual mentoring to make sure everyone in
the organization understands and can effectively use the tools of
leadership. Be sure everyone knows why stereotyped "management''
must become part of the past.
Eleven Practical Building Blocks
Here are eleven steps that have been used in many vanguard
companies led by tough-minded visioneers:
Page 12
1. Research, develop, and clearly communicate the company's
vision, philosophy, mission, goals, and objectives. People's aspirations
are focused on these transcendent motives and they move forward in
concert. Involvement of the team is crucial, or commitment will be
lacking. People support what they help create!
2. Use computers to create a "strengths bank" containing the key
strengths of all team members. Use the "logical deployment of
strengths" principle as the basis for all new personnel assignments.
3. Work with each person to develop stretching performance
standards based on results. Such targeted results are components of
the organization's philosophy, mission, goals, key results areas, and
action plans.
4. Establish accountability for results in all key jobs and require
lean, clear progress reports.
5. Regularly evaluate the worth of every department, position, and
person in the organization in terms of measurable contribution to
agreed-upon results. Relate all compensation and perquisites directly
to performance.
6. Establish the philosophy that excellent management is the
development and optimal leadership of people, not the direction of
things. Assign a high priority to whole-person development.
7. Make sure all key personnel receive in-depth training in cuttingedge techniques of empowering people so that they exhibit optimal
performance.
8.
Provide for motivation components that include:
a. Fulfilling basic needs for security, oppportunity, recognition,
belonging, and, above all, significance
b.
Empowering optimal performance, expecting the best
c.
Positive, open listening and hearing
d.
Building on strengths
9. Develop the realization that stretching, innovation-fed work is a
pleasant and rewarding part of life.
10. Establish and exemplify the belief that integrity is the most
important ingredient in all human activity. Popularize the phrase
"leadership by integrity" within your organization.
11. Establish a companywide program of physical, mental, and
spiritual fitness.
The Marriott Way
One of the most successful companies in America is the Marriott
Corporation, founded by J. Willard Marriott, Sr. When Bill Jr. became
executive vice-president, Bill Sr. passed on these fifteen tough-minded
guideposts.'
Page 13
1.
Keep physically fit, mentally and spiritually strong.
2.
Guard your habits; bad ones will destroy you.
3.
Pray about every difficult problem.
4. Study and follow professional management principles. Apply
them logically to your organization.
5. People are number onetheir growth, loyalty, interest, team spirit.
Develop managers in every area. This is your prime responsibility.
6. Decisions: Men grow making decisions and assuming
responsibility for them.
a. Make crystal clear what decision each manager is responsible
for and what decisions you reserve for yourself.
b.
Have all facts and counsel necessarythen decide and stick to it.
7. Criticism: Don't criticize people, but make a fair appraisal of
their qualifications with their supervisor only (or someone assigned to
do this). Remember, anything you say about someone may (and
usually does) get back to them. There are few secrets.
8.
See the good in people and try to develop those qualities.
9. Inefficiency: If it cannot be overcome and an employee is
obviously incapable of the job, find a job he can do or terminate now.
Don't wait.
10.
Manage your time.
a.
Keep conversations short and to the point.
b.
Make every minute on the job count.
c.
Work fewer hours; some of us waste half our time.
11.
Delegate and hold accountable for results.
12.
Details:
a.
Let your staff take care of them.
b. Save your energy for planning, thinking, working with
department heads, promoting new ideas.
c.
13.
Don't do anything someone else can do for you.
Ideas and competition:
a.
Ideas keep the business alive.
b.
Know what your competitors are doing and planning.
c. Encourage all management to think about better ways and give
suggestions on anything that will improve business.
d.
14.
Spend time and money on research and development.
Don't try to do an employee's job for him; counsel and suggest.
15. Think objectively and keep a sense of humor. Make the
business fun for you and others.1
1. Executive Excellence (April 1986). Used by permission of J. W.
Marriott, Jr.
Page 14
THE CORE OF TOUGH-MINDED LEADERSHIP
So, having looked at both general philosophy and specific action
steps, we can summarize some basic beliefs of the tough-minded
leader:
Pervasive flexibility in all elements of the culture.
Performance is all that matters.
Optimal service through optimum development of people.
Expectations that stretch rather than directives that compress.
Intuitive, sensing management.
Clear, no-nonsense accountability for results.
Build on strengths; don't dwell on weaknesses.
Vision and strategy fueled by a tough, growing mind.
Commitment to transcendent and growing, changing dreams.
Ethical behavior, in the deepest sense.
Hard and dedicated work.
The same central ideas are displayed pictorially in Figure 2.1.
The cybernetic circle of becoming illustrates the macro beliefs,
values, and procedural fundamentals that will undergird all the ideas
in this book. This circle provides the human interaction components
needed to fuel the entire tough-minded leadership paradigm. All
staffing, planning, coordination, execution, control, and cultural
growth are to be nurtured by these elements. The meaning of the term
cybernetic is explained in the Glossary.
U.S. LEADERS SPEAK OUT
It is perhaps fitting to close this chapter with some comments from
those who practice the principles of tough-minded leadership. We
might think of the quotes that follow as the ''distilled wisdom" of
some of America's best business minds.
Getting the order is the easiest step; after-sales service is what counts.
Above all, we seek a reputation for doing the little things well.2
BUCK RODGERS, FORMER SALES VICE-PRESIDENT, IBM
In the best institutions, promises are kept no matter what the cost in agony
and overtime.3
DAVID OGILVY, CHAIRMAN, OGILVY & MATHER
2. Getting the Best Out of Yourself and Others (New York: Harper & Row,
1987).
3. Ogilvy on Advertising (New York: Vintage Trade Books, 1985).
Page 15
Figure 2.1. The cybernetic circle of becoming.
You've got to be willing to fail.4
JAMES E. BURKE, CHAIRMAN, JOHNSON & JOHNSON
The key ingredient is productivity through people, pure and simple.5
RENÉ MCPHERSON, CEO, DANA CORPORATION
I want all our people to believe they are working in the best organization in
the world. Kill grimness
4. Thomas R. Horton, "What Works for Me": Sixteen CEOs Talk About
Their Careers and Commitments (New York: Random House, 1986).
5. Thomas Peters and Nancy Austin, A Passion for Excellence (New York:
Random House, 1985).
Page 16
with laughter. Encourage exuberance. Get rid of bad dogs that spread
gloom.6
DAVID OGILVY, CHAIRMAN, OGILVY & MATHER
IBM's philosophy is largely contained in three simple beliefs. I want to
begin with what I think is the most important. Our respect for the
individual. This is a simple concept, but in IBM it occupies a major
portion of management time. We devote more effort to it than anything
else. This belief was bone-deep in my lather.7
THOMAS J. WATSON, JR., FORMER CHAIRMAN, IBM
6. Ogilvy on Advertising (New York: Vintage Trade Books, 1985).
7. A Business and Its Beliefs: The Ideas That Helped Build IBM (Ann
Arbor, Mich.: UMI).
Page 17
CHAPTER 3
HIGH PERFORMANCE: THE POSSIBLE DREAM
One of the most consistent characteristics among high-performance people is
the ability to take a hit in stride and bounce back.
What's the hottest thing in management today? Leadership! I truly
believe that this new emphasis is much more than a passing fad. It is
finally being perceived by large and small organizations alike that a
company's profit and future are only as strong as its corporate culture.
And an excellent corporate culture can be envisioned and built only
by excellent leaders.
A "culture" is literally "the things we believe in and the way we do
them here." The culture is founded on a carefully researched,
designed, and communicated philosophya statement of basic beliefs
and values, a grand design, a transcendent set of goals, a vision, a
dream ... call it what you will.
Page 18
Figure 3.1. The "P" pyramid.
Take a look at the "P" pyramid (Figure 3.1). The philosophy is the
broad bottom foundation. Rising out of those carefully defined
principles and beliefs are the following Ps in order: policies,
programs, procedures, processes, projects, and practices for the
purpose of profit.
As we prepare to take dead aim on performance as the central motor
of any organization, please study the "P" pyramid. It has been used as
the centerpiece for many Japanese training programs. Performance,
however, is the major P that all the other Ps are about.
BUILD CORPORATE CULTURES FROM YOUR "P" PYRAMID
All excellent leaders or executives (and they should be the same
people) operate according to a grand design, although some cat
articulate it better than others. The point is that the grand design
should be researched, clearly thought out, put in writing, and
communicated so pervasively and meaningfully throughout the
organization that it provides the fuel for involvement, commitment,
and dedication by each and every person. After all, the foundation
determines just how tall a building can be. Similarly, the
grand design, the basic philosophy, determines the organization's scope and
purpose, the heights of service and profitability to which it may eventually rise.
Here is an example of a tough-minded mission statement:
We will provide the best customer service in the world. All decisions, all rewards, and all
accountability will be conditioned by that commitment.
A superlative philosophy/mission statement is exemplified in the leadership pledg
of the Marriott Corporation, as follows:
TO:
Myself
SUBJECT: A Pledge for (year): A Rededication to Excellence in Leadership
I promise the members of my team:
1.
To set the right example for them by my own actions in all things.
2. To be consistent in my temperament so that they know how to "read" me
and what to expect from me.
3. To be fair, impartial, and consistent in matters relating to work rules,
discipline, and rewards.
4. To show a sincere, personal interest in them as individuals without
becoming overly "familiar."
5. To seek their counsel on matters that affect their jobs and to be guided as
much as possible by their judgment.
6. To allow them as much individuality as possible in the way their jobs are
performed, as long as the quality of the end result is not compromised.
7. To make sure they always know in advance what I expect from them in th
way of conduct and performance on the job.
8. To be appreciative of their efforts and generous in praise of their
accomplishments.
9. To use every opportunity to teach them how to do their jobs better and how
to help themselves advance in skill level and responsibility.
10. To show them that I can "do" as well as "manage" by pitching in to work
beside them when my help is needed.
Signed
____________________________
And if all is not well with the organization, and cultural change is needed, it is up
to the leader to orchestrate that change. In "The Worth
Page 20
Ethic vs. the Work Ethic" (Executive Excellence, February 1988),
management consultant Larry Senn says,
Leaders must cast different shadows if the culture is to change. Executives
must give more time and attention to the new values if the culture is to
change.
It is a particular joyand it is all too rareto walk into an organization
and hear enlightened answers to questions like these:
Why does the company do what it does?
What does it really believe in?
What is the fundamental purpose of your job?
Do you know the what, where, when, who, how, and why of your
job?
What are the organization's strengths?
What are your strengths?
Do you know what excellence really means?
Do you really feel a significant part of things here?
Are people doing things for each other or to each other?
Is renewal going on at all levels in the organization?
Excellent organizations strive for better understanding and
development of their people. The excellent organization of today and
tomorrow will be characterized by the following qualities, traits, and
practices:
Purpose and direction
Clear, lean, and clean Ps
Upbeat and positive attitudes
Compensation related to actual performance
Commitment to superior service in all dimensions and at all levels
Zest for change
Tomorrow-mindedness
Feelings of involvement
Commitment to growth and innovation
Commitment to renewal
For those who aspire to excellence as leaders, there has never been a
more exciting time to be alive on this planet.
HOW TO BE TOUGH: A CASE STUDY
Tough-minded leaders build cultures in which all considerations of
race, sex, age, education, seniority, formal education, and all the rest
are secondary to actual performance. Perhaps I can best illustrate this
by telling you about a young woman I know.
Page 21
The Story of Ann
In about an hour the seminar on tough-minded management would be
getting underway. I had arrived early to be sure that all arrangements
and facilities were in good order. Hearing a sound, I turned around
from the easel I was adjusting and saw a young woman walking
toward me with almost military precision.
"I've been looking forward to today for quite a while," she said
intensely. "Can you assure me I'll really be a tough-minded manager
after this seminar?" She seemed tense and determined, wore severely
tailored clothes, and looked at me almost defiantly.
I asked her what she thought a tough-minded manager was and
received an all too familiar (and hopelessly outdated) summing up. In
her view, a tough-minded manager is:
Aggressive
A go-getter
Assertive (the stereotyped, self-serving definition)
Able to take care of yourself
A winner at corporate infighting
Someone who believes in "power" dressing, "power" breakfasts,
and other superficial trappings of confidence
Unflappable and highly controlled
A pusher
A driver
A taker
As we talked it became clear that she saw herself as a person who had
to react and respond to a world created and dominated by men. I
assured her that the path she had described was almost certain to
bring about a collision with failure and asked her to be prepared for a
day of discussion, involvement, emotional vulnerability, and openness.
When everyone had arrived, we began our day. The seminar focused
on key transitions from the status quo to the demanding but immensely
rewarding requirements of tough-mindedness in the workplace. We
developed action steps for changing all the items in the left-hand
column below to those on the right.
Making the Tough-Minded Transition
From
To
Directiveness
Compromising expectations
Defensiveness
Expectiveness
Clear, stretching expectations
Open, warm, thoughtful candor
Page 22
From
Activity documents and reports
Hunch and guess
Inconsistency and emotionalism
Conformity or rebellion
Competing with others (the amateur)
Complexity
Procrastination
Euphemism
Dialogue (two or more people engaged in
monologues)
Crises and fire fighting
Office politics and defensiveness
Blurred, expedient morality
Reaction to symptoms
Disparate actions
Compensation based on actions and
personal characteristics
Fragmentation and diffusion of effort
Getting
Focusing on weaknesses
Commitment to self only
Guarded behavior
Negative listening
Dis-satisfaction (past oriented)
Dissent
"Gamesmanship"
Expecting the worst
Pushing, driving
Grim
Negative G forces
To
Performance progress reports
Disciplined, researched decisions
Consistency and focus
Individuality and competition with self
Competing with self (the pro)
Simplicity
Confrontation
Specificity
Communication (shared meaning,
shared understanding)
"Early warning systems"
Team synergy and openness
Tough, stretching moral practices
Pro action dealing with cause
Unifying team actions
Compensation based on positive
performance
Purpose and direction
Giving
Building on strengths
Commitment to goals and objectives
that transcend self
Caring and giving
Positive listening
Un-satisfaction (future oriented)
Protest
Accountability for results
Expecting the best
Leading
Cheerful
Positive G forces [see next chapter]
I warned the seminar participants, "As you examine these transitions, be
prepared for some fairly drastic changes. They are tough and they
require work, but the rewards for truly tough-minded managers are
require work, but the rewards for truly tough-minded managers are
enormous."
At the end of the day my new friend, Ann, came up to shake hands. "This
was not at all what I expected and I'm glad it wasn't. This kind of
Page 23
lifestyle and managerial style is tough, all right, but I know it's going
to be fun, too."
Five years later, in another part of the country, I was waiting in the
airport for my flight when I heard a buoyant voice call out, "Hey, Joe,
do you remember me?" I turned around and barely recognized the
bright and vital woman walking toward me. Of course, you've guessed
who it was. Ann and I sat down over a cup of coffee and she poured
out a heartening story.
She had moved up three levels in her organization and had just been
interviewed for a major executive position in another company. She
stressed that making the tough-minded transition had not been easy.
She'd encountered many rocks and shoals. She pointed out, however,
that these happenings had only strengthened her because, as she said,
"I had a dream and I learned to build muscles and action steps into
that dream."
I asked her what the single most significant insight had been. Her
answer was unhesitating: "Understanding the difference between a
hard mind and a tough mind. It started all the other things
happening."
She had copied down the verbatim definition of tough-mindedness
from the seminar and had become familiar with the real meaning of
tough, as follows:
WHAT "TOUGH" REALLY MEANS
If I place two pieces of material the same size, shape and form on an anvil,
and one is made of granite, the other of leather, and then hit each with a
hammer, what will happen? The granite will shatter into pieces, precisely
because it is hard. It is rigid, brittle, and weak. The leather is barely
dented, precisely because it is not hard. It is flexible, malleable, resilient,
elastic, durable, suppleand it is tough!
"It became a real thrill," she said, "to continuously seek to open,
strengthen, stretch, and toughen my mind. Another thrill was to
discover that real assertiveness meant 'the logical exposition and
deployment of my strengths.' It certainly helped me to ultimately
understand how much more we get when we give from a strengthbased level of sell-esteem and confidence."
Ann has continued to grow and is now heading a major division of
people who themselves are growing because of her strong, caring, and
tough-minded leadership. Her income is far beyond her earlier
dreams. She is using one of the world's most underused
resourceswomanpowerwith
Page 24
courage, commitment, enthusiasm, tough-mindedness, and action. She
has begun to lead.
PERFORMANCE IS ALL THAT MATTERS
To declare that performance is all that matters sounds a little rigid and
unbending at first. The term performance, after all, means ''getting it
done"! Buck Rodgers, the charismatic leader who was vice-president
of marketing at IBM, puts it well in his book, Getting the Best Out of
Yourself and Others:
Motivating another person to attain success is anything but an act of
altruism. If you are an executive or in management, you have
responsibility to the people you manageand the company you work forto
motivate others to grow, to improve, and to flourish. You want them to
produce more, waste less, and be more innovative.1
Right about here it would be a good idea to do a little soul searching.
You must decide what you expect the performance of your team
members to yield. In other words, why are you in business? What are
your goals?
To acquire a condo? A sports car?
To produce a greater return on investment?
To actualize your possibilities as an individual?
To increase your net profit?
To create new things?
To improve service to consumers?
To market a better product?
To bring in new customers?
To provide leadership?
To build a personal estate?
To enhance your lifestyle and that of others?
To retire at an early age?
To turn leadership over to younger people?
To develop a corporate image?
To transform organizations and lives?
It is essential that the tough-minded interpretation of performance be
fully understood. Performance means the total performance of the
person and includes as much emphasis on qualitative measures of
performance as the quantitative. Real and satisfying quantitative
results simply will not happen without a high, even excellent, measure
of qualitative indices such
1. (New York: Harper & Row, 1987).
Page 25
as commitment, confidence, courage, integrity, personal renewal,
loyalty, hard work, fairness, judgment, and uncommonly good
common sense.
Do you love and respect the dignity and worth of your team members
enough to truly integrate this into every dimension of your
organization? Every level of the "P" pyramid? Do you care enough?
PERFORMANCE, JAPANESE STYLE
The chairman of Mitsubishi was once interviewed on the subject of
lifetime employment in Japanese industries. "What do you do if a middle
manager starts misperforming?" he was asked. "What do you do with him,
given that you're committed to employ him for a lifetime?"
The chairman said quickly, ''Oh, that's a problem we've studied a great
deal. First, we check out the situation to find if there's something we could
change to improve his performance. But, if we really don't understand why
he's performing badly, we promote him. Because in 72.4 percent (or
thereabouts) of the times we promote someone, their performance
immediately improves."
Action Steps for Increasing Performance
1. Ask everybody in the organization to submit ideas and
suggestions in sculpting the best possible mission, philosophy, and
broad goals.
2.
Develop clear and specific standards of performance.
3.
Relate all compensation and perquisites directly to performance.
4. Dismantle rigid, hierarchical compensation systems and take
bold leaps in policy and procedure to ensure that all team members
are rewarded generously for measurable contribution to the fulfillment
of the customer's needs.
5. Provide in-depth understanding by all team members that the
awesome possibilities of computers are totally dependent on the
strength, focus, and application of human minds. Computers are
potent toolsbut only tools.
6.
Expect the bestand reinforce it.
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CHAPTER 4
REVERSE THE G FORCESPIVOTAL LEADERSHIP
Old habits have tremendous pull. Breaking deeply imbedded habits of
procrastination, criticism, overeating or oversleeping involves more than a
little will power. We may be dealing with basic character issues and need
achieve some basic reorientation or transformation.
STEPHEN R. COVEY, OWNER AND PUBLISHER, EXECUTIVE
EXCELLENCE
Most of the current approaches to training and development are
bankrupt. We must make a major break with the past. From push to
pull, from static to dynamic, from compression to expansionthat's the
wave of the future! Splendid new possibilities are opening in all
directions, and the latent creative energy lurking in the average human
mind is truly awesome.
Page 27
Just one example of these myriad possibilities is the networking and
communication power of computers. All growth, all development will
depend completely on the quality of the minds of current and potential
leaders. In The Effective Executive (1966), Peter Druckeras usualsays
it well:
All [a computer] can do is compute. For this reason, it demands clear
analysis, especially of the boundary conditions the decision has to satisfy.
And that requires risk-taking judgment of a high order.1
In other words, the computer can amplify and liberate minds of
leaders for their real jobsthinking, leading, and optimizing resources.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE G FORCES
What is a G force, anyway? "G" stands for gravity, and is a term
scientists use as a unit of measure, to describe the amount of the force
exerted on Earth by gravity. I use the term figuratively, and in this
figurative sense there are both negative and positive G forces.
Negative G forces are the self-defeating habits of the pastpassivity,
focus on weaknesses, "driving" attitudes; they only pull us down.
Positive G forces of the future are the passionate attitudes and
practices that energize us. In a sense, these G forces pull us up (even
though we all know that literal gravity cannot); see Figure 4.1. This
chapterindeed, this entire bookis about how to release yourself from
the negative G forces of the past and plug into the positive G forces of
the future.
CYBERNETIC CIRCLE OF LEADERSHIP
Twelve key requirementspositive G forcesfor the tough-minded
visioneer of the future are displayed in Figure 4.2, which is called the
cybernetic circle of leadership. What the mind of man can conceive,
the dedicated and focused energy of man can achieve. The quest for
the new and better requires tough-minded leaders to study and master
these twelve steps.
Step 1. Clarify Purpose and Direction
In "Tapping Into the New Sources of Power" (Executive Excellence,
February 1988), Alan Posner and Barry Randolph write:
Leaders are expected to be forward-looking, to have a sense of direction,
and to be concerned about the future of the enterprise. Followers want to
have a feeling for the destination that the leader has in mind.
1. (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.).
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Figure 4.1. Positive and negative G forces.
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Figure 4.2. The cybernetic circle of leadership.
Page 30
Where are we going? What will it be like there? The leader's clarity about
the target objectives [is] akin to the magnetic pull of a compass.
It is difficult to overemphasize the practicality, the sheer necessity, of
a dream that provides lift, stretch, clarity, focus, and pull. A dream
gives voltage, vitality, focus, and joy to our days. It is the stuff of high
achievement.
Leaders must have followers, and no one can truly follow a person
who has no dream. Such a "leader" must constantly improvise
directives and ordersG forces of the past. The true leader provides
shared purpose and direction fueled by shared values and energy.
The leader's role is to clarify the philosophy of an organization and
state it succinctly and powerfully.
Company Philosophy Provides
Visiona grand design
Identification
Stretcha quickening of the pulse
Integration of the values of the organization
Motives
A spirit that lifts
Positivism
Hope
Harry Emerson Fosdick said, "No life ever grows great until it is
focused, dedicated, disciplined." I will paraphrase that here.' No
organization ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated,
disciplined.
Step 2. Ask, Listen, Hear
Great leaders pull the team forward and keep it on course. It is so easy
for the old-style manager to dismiss this step, to cop out and say, "I
listen all the timeI took a course in listening." We're calling for much
more than listening, however. The real question is, do you hear? If
you listen to your team members, you'll perceive the words they use.
If you hear them, however, you'll understand what they mean.
Retooling your vocabulary so that it expresses an interrogative
leadership style rather than a directive or declarative style cannot be
accomplished overnight. Confidence in your uniqueness and strengths
is required. The insecure manager finds it very difficult to consistently
ask, listen, and hear because of a lifetime spent subtly and
subconsciously building defensive statements and "cover your tail"
approaches. That's the reason for all the defensive memos, meeting
agendas, and correspondence we see.
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Figure 4.3. Top-down organization of the past.
Tough-minded and truly confident leaders are able to develop and
maintain emotional vulnerability, the capacity to let others in and let
themselves out. This enables them to move beyond dialogue, which
means two or more people engaged in monologues, to
communication, which means shared meaning with shared
understanding. The G forces of the future will require in-depth
commitment to these deep levels of personal growth and change. The
payoff can be enormous.
If I can listen to what he tells me. If I can understand how it seems to him,
if I can sense the emotional flavor which it has Jot him then I will be
releasing potent forces of change within him.
PSYCHOLOGIST CARL ROGERS
Step 3. Enable Involvement and Participation
The whole concept of the corporation must change if involvement and
participation of all team members are to become realities. Please note
that in Figure 4.3, the traditional flow of directiveness goes down
from the top. Edicts are issued. Directives are propounded. The will of
management is
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Figure 4.4. Bottom-up organization of the future.
externally imposed on the organization. In Figure 4.4, energy and
effort flow upward; they are lifted, pulled, and expected rather than
pushed, pressed, and directed. Benefits are many. For example:
Team members feel significant, listened to, valued as individuals.
They feel they had a hand in something bigger than themselves.
They feel some emotional investment in "their plan."
They have enhanced feelings of belonging, opportunity, security,
recognition, and, above all, significance.
They will expend more energy and work harder and smarter to
meet and fulfill the new expectations.
Step 4. Set Clear Expectations and Goals
The goals of the companywhat it is expected to achieveare the
responsibility of its leader. Do you know the answers to these
questions?
What are the expectations of your customers, publics, or
constituencies? Do you know? It is crucial to find out.
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Where do they expect their needs to be met? Where do you expect
to fulfill them?
Who is your market? Do you really know? Have you truly assessed
your consumer motivations and expectations?
How should these constituencies be best served? Have you
mobilized the best data and ideas from your staff?
Why are you in business? Do you actually know precisely the basic
utility you are ostensibly organized to serve? What is it?
When, at what targeted intervals, will these questions be addressed
and resolved?
In a very real sense, the leader's expectations determine the future of
the organization. People tend to deliver what is expected of thembe it
good or bad. If you encountered a team member in the shop, factory,
or office, and that person asked, "What do you expect from me?"
would you have an answer? Now suppose that person also asked,
"What do you expect from your job? What do you expect from the
future?" Could you explain your goals?
Step 5. Provide Consistent Interaction
There is enormous value in "leading by walking around" if you know
what to do and say as you walk around. I emphasize say because
interaction is really communication, and words are our most
sophisticated and practical tools of communication. Here is a
comprehensive list of directive actions, words, and conceptsnegative
G forcesto avoid:
Language of the Past
Push
Tell
Secondary purpose
Defensiveness and rote
Input
Compress
Intended to guide
Repress
Suppress
Depress
Advise
Impact
Comply
Implode
Contract
Rigidity
Caution
Dissatisfaction
"I want you to . . ."
Maintenance or erosion of motivation
Directed accountability
Invulnerable
Defensive
Discontinuity
Inconsistent motivation
Resistance
Expedience
"Do as I say . . ."
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Language of the Past
Inward and down
Static
Blunt
Centripetal
Replication of creativity
Anxieties
Repressed and glossed conflict
Manipulated
Resignation
Robotlike
Can't
Don't
Won't
Inflict motive on others
Autocracy
Cynicism
Theory X
Forgetting
Resentful
Compel
Concern for active compliance
Retardation
Early obsolescence
Reduce
Couldn't
Wouldn't
Didn't
Shouldn't
Did you find any "pull" in any of these words?
Note, please, that the recipient of these actions and words feels
directed, diminished, and, all too often, emotionally drowned.
Now here is a list of expective words, actions, and conceptspositive G
forces. Absorb them, understand them, and use them as you walk
around and lead.
Language of the Future
Commit to
Look forward
Hope
Await
Evoke
Unfold
Grow
Blossom
Count on
Prospective and perspective
Future-oriented
Predict
Promise
Ask
Create
Enthusiasm
Anticipate
Pull
Lead
Output
Lift
Counsel
Expand
Explode
Outward and up
Primary purpose
Vulnerability and openness
Care
Unsatisfied
"Will you . . . ?"
Motive-action
Accountability
Give
Share
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Language of the Future
Dynamic
Eager
Impatient and/or patient
Foresee
Prepare for
Envision
Apprehend
Target
Catalytic action
Candor
Surface conflict
Stimulate
Respect
Reciprocal response
Reassurance of dignity
Confront
''Follow me"
The "we" feeling
Sense of wonder
Build
Forgiving
Take aim
Empathic
Concern for results
Solves conflict
Release
Sensing
Renewal
Exploration
Attract
I urge you to study and use the expective words as you replace and
displace directive words. Truly, you become what you say!
Step 6. Affirm and Optimize Strengths
In their book Leaders (1985), Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus say:
For the most part, the leaders emphasized their strengths and tended to soft
pedal or minimize their weaknesses. Which is not to say that they weren't
aware of personal weaknesses but rather that they didn't harp on them. . . .
Recognizing strengths and compensating for weaknesses represent the first
step in achieving positive self-regard.2
Tough-minded visioneers know that the only reality of a person is the
sum of his or her strengths.
Here is a definition of leadership for the turbulent decade ahead:
Leadership: Development of a clear and complete system of expectations
in order to identify, evoke, and use the strengths of all resources in the
organizationthe most important of which is people.
All great organizations of the future will create and develop a
computerized strengths bank that can be accessed in a great variety of
situations. With this powerful tool at hand, the new organizational
dictum called "the
2. (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.).
Page 36
logical deployment of strengths" becomes not only a day-by-day but
an hour-by-hour reality.
The strengths-centered leader is better equipped to provide confident,
calm, rational, and stretching expectationsand to set the pace!
Step 7. Establish Measurements
Increasingly in the Age of the Mind, indices of performance will be
qualitative, even as we develop increasingly accurate and
sophisticated methods of developing bottom-line numbers that are
projective and stretching. I'm saying here that leadership must be
subjective even as the measurements of performance become
increasingly objective. Over the years, I have heard many executives
say earnestly, "I must be more objective." In reality, leaders must
increasingly concentrate on subjective human qualities, and use the
objective data, tools, and instruments as aids in determining precise
measurements.
Step 8. Monitor Performance
"Activity" reports are out; "progress reports" are in. Accurate, realistic
progress reports can work effectively only within the infrastructure of
Mission Þ Philosophy Þ Goals Þ Objectives Þ Action Plans Þ and
Performance Standards.
These progress reports should be future oriented, focusing on actual
results rather than on activity. They should be lean, succinct, and
cogent. Winston Churchill required that every report or major
recommendation be distilled into one page. The discipline required for
such focus, brevity, and relevance is a powerful developmental device
in itself, and, of course, frees the next higher reporting level executive
to function much more effectively.
You should always follow these key guidelines when preparing
progress reports:
State your purpose.
Promote system and sequence.
Pay attention to order and flow.
Consider impact on service and profit.
Make sure that the objectives and plans are conducive to effective
decision making.
Monitoring performance through performance appraisals in the new
leadership climate requires thoughtful and thorough meshing of both
mechanics and dynamics, as illustrated in Figure 4.5.
Figure 4.5. Performance appraisal: Meshing expectations to optimize
performance.
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Step 9. Provide Development Counsel
Just as leaders of the future know that setting performance standards
means more than just establishing objective numbers, they know too
that evaluating a team member's performance means more than just
matching numbers against goals. Tough-minded leaders view
performance appraisals as a rich opportunity for teaching and
counseling. Here are seven rules for conducting an effective appraisal:
1.
Give feedback. Frequent communication ensures that there will
be no surprises! Frequent communication and feedback on the job
help overcome fear during the actual performance appraisal.
2.
Evaluate your own performance before you evaluate the team
member's performance. Are you responsible for his or her good or bad
performance? If you point a finger, are you aware of the three
pointing back at you?
3.
Schedule a warmup period:
a. Take time to develop rapport and discuss the advantage of the
appraisal.
b. Review the information on hand to measure the team
member's performance.
4. Be candid and specific. Get right to the point in discussing a
team member's performance on the job. Honesty, candor, and
responsiveness will result in a big payoff for you and the team
member.
5.
Build on strengths. This tough-minded approach enables team
members to work toward their greatest potential. Team members must
use their strengths to accomplish a job; they cannot use weaknesses
since weaknesses are only the absence of strengths or insufficiently
developed strengths.
6. Be a positive listener. Listen with ears, eyes, heart, and your
entire being. Nonverbal communication often says more than words.
7. Evaluate and appraise performance, not the person. Evaluate the
team member's performance and end results. Don't judge the person.
Judgments come from a focus on weaknesses. Evaluations are based
on identifying and enhancing strengthsthe stuff of empowerment.
Step 10. Establish Accountability
In Tough-Minded Management, I stated that accountability means the
clear, warm understanding that you do a job or get out of it. This is
even more true as a stabilizing truth for the last decades of the
twentieth century.
Before the negative or punitive portion of the whole-balanced and
tough-minded concept of accountability is enforced, it places a
premium on the excellence of the example and leadership of you. I'll
deal with that
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here, but first, let me clear up the notion that accountability is
primarily negative. It is not!
Accountability provides first of all for rewards for outstanding
performance. Only when the desired level of performance clearly
cannot be reached does the tough-minded leader take punitive steps.
In "Tapping Into the New Sources of Power" (Executive Excellence,
February 1988), Alan Posner and Barry Randolph write:
Coercive power is based on the perception that another person has the
ability to punish or withhold valued resources. Effective executives avoid
using coercive power except when absolutely necessary because its use
creates resentment and erodes their personal power base. With coercion
there is no chance of gaining commitment.
If you are a truly tough-minded expective leader, you will recognize
that organizational authority is to be used as the last rather than the
first expedient. Before considering termination or demotion, you will
make sure you have provided the team member with:
The right example
The what, where, when, who, how, and why of his or her job
expectations
The information, training, materials, and resources needed
Clear insight into his or her present and potential
strengthscongenial facts
A dear assessment of his or her personal possibilities
Enhanced understanding of his or her uniqueness or value
Above all, warm clarity of expectation
Clearly communicated agreement as to the time frame involved in
shaping up or shipping out
A truly tough-minded leader will perceive that pure organizational
authority is a poor substitute for real authoritythe authority of
example.
Step 11. Make Tough-Minded Decisions
Modern tough-minded leaders who are plugged into the G forces of
the future believe in and practice consultive decision making. That
means they:
1. Provide excellent training and example for team members, so
that they know the what, where, when, who, how, and why of their
jobs and the organization.
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2. Expect completed staff work. Team members do not bring their
problems to managers. Rather, they do the research, thinking, and
preparation they are paid for, and then present the manager with
appropriate proposals and recommendations. In this way, leaders can
truly manage by expectation and can make full use of the skills for
which team members are paid. Of course the managers are in a
position to reject, modify, or accept the proposal.
3. Listen carefully, solicit the best input and suggestions from
appropriate team members, and make the decision only if it is
inappropriate for the team member to do so.
4. Make the decision (if they should) with full awareness of their
accountability for its success.
5. Strive always to push decisions down the level where they
should most properly be made. Unit leaders strive to back the
decisions of their team members firmly, consistently, and fairly. They
expect team members to provide the same type of support to them.
In short, before making major decisions, leaders strive consistently to
use the wisdom and resources availableand then they do three crucial
things:
1.
2.
3.
Ask
Listen
Hear
Making decisions is what leaders are paid for!
Step 12. Expect Excellence and Reinforce It
Do you care enough about you and your team to put some muscle
into your dreams?
Do you care enough to gradually build up reserves and emotional
filesmental and spiritual stamina?
Do you care enough to define yourself?
Do you care enough to confront your hopes?
Do you care enough to ask much from your life and from your
team?
Do you care enough to build "forgiving" relationships?
Do you care enough to seek strengths in all things?
Do you care enough to replace cynicism with wonder?
Do you care enough to eliminate words like can't, don't, and won't
(what I call the lousy apostrophet's) from your vocabulary?
Do you care enough to share the real you with others?
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Do you care enough to distinguish between tranquility (the bland
leading the bland) and real happiness: passionate confrontation of
life's possibilities?
Do you care enough to lead?
Do you care enough to expect the best?
If you care that much, you can and will reverse the G forces. Plugging
into the G forces of the future requires rigorous assessment of, and
probably change in, our appetites and passions, pride and pretensions,
aspirations and ambitions. The tough-minded leader of the future will
settle for nothing less.
Remember, the size of your dream will determine the size of the
person you will become.
Page 42
CHAPTER 5
A NEW "SYSTEMS" APPROACH TO
MANAGEMENT
The key to success in the Integrated Planning Process lies in getting the
involvement and commitment of everyone in the organization. Remember, the
purpose of planning is not to produce plans; it is to produce results, and this
requires total organization and commitment.
GEORGE L. MOHRISEY, THE EXECUTIVE GUIDE TO STRATEGIC
PLANNING
We have heard a great deal in recent years about the "systems"
approach to management. Many definitions of the term system are
offered by its proponents, including:
"A group of interacting bodies under the influence of related forces."
"The body considered as a functional unit."
Page 43
"An organized set of doctrines, ideas, or principles usually intended to
explain the arrangement or working of a systematic whole."
"Harmonious arrangement or pattern."
"An assemblage of substances that is in or tends to equilibrium."
Sounds great, doesn't it? Unfortunately, many peopleand I am
onebelieve that the systems approach, on the whole, has not worked
well. One of the principal reasons this approach has not delivered its
full payload is that it has been thought of as a detached, "scientific"
way of doing things. In this regard, consider these ideas:
A good management organization is a system.
A poor management organization is also a system, but a poor one.
A key weakness in systems, and therefore in management
development, has been the tendency to view a system simply as an
aggregate of materials, of diagrams, flowcharts, data-based modules,
equipment, and other nonhuman resources.
A true system, whether a leadership system or any other kind, is a
gestalt, a blend of functionally compatible components.
A system is really a system of values, a combination of essential
truths. Values are the subjective interpretation of the immutable laws
of the universe that shape and guide human reactions.
The orderly expression and transfer of tough-minded values into
practices is the essential process involved in building a climate of
productivity. It is a dynamic interweaving of individual behavior
patterns that produce group accomplishment greater than the sum of
its parts. An excellent symphony orchestra is a system of music.
The system, then, should be conceived as an orderly juxtaposition of
resources (people, money, material, time, and space) blended to fulfill
expectations of, by, about, and for people. This is my central focus.
What we have, then, is a new kind of systems approach, focused on
expectations. In short, we replace MBO (management by objectives)
with MBEmanagement by expectations.
MBE: MANAGEMENT BY EXPECTATIONS
The ongoing effectiveness and possible excellence of this system
depends completely on in-depth understanding and consistent
application of the three principles embodied in the cybernetic circle of
operational effectiveness (see Figure 5.1). Commitment leads to
conviction, which leads to involvement, which in turn leads to
renewed commitmentand the circle continues.
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Figure 5.1. The cybernetic circle of operational effectiveness.
In countless instances throughout the country, our consulting team has
seen meticulously prepared plans go awry simply because the people
in the organization did not feel sufficiently involved (ask, listen, hear)
to make a truly visceral commitment that could be carried out with
conviction.
For outstanding involvement, commitment, and conviction to become
reality, you must make sure all team members feel:
Significant
Listened to and heard.
Empowered and valued
Consistently informed
Rewarded in all suitable ways
Like winners
Above all, you must create a climate where all team members
experience shared meaning, shared understanding, shared vision, and
shared values.
Page 45
A SYSTEM OF EXPECTIVE LEADERSHIP
To get down to specifics, in Figure 5.2 I have attempted to present an
overall expective leadership system. Let us discuss each of the key
elements in turn.
Phase 1: Research
Organizational research should be considered as a here-and-now kind
of event as well as an ongoing process. The needs of the total
organization must be continually viewed against external conditions in
the country and in the world that will affect what happens in the
organization. The connection is now all too clear between factors that
were once thought to be unconnected. The six phases that follow must
be carefully thought through in terms of the expectations of the people
employed by the organization.
Phase 2: Plan
For some time now, planningparticularly long-range planninghas been
a popular topic of conversation in management circles. Every
progressive executive believes in planning; you can no more knock it
than you can apple pie, the Constitution, or motherhood.
Unfortunately, in my view, they believe in the wrong kind of planning.
I am firmly convinced that the kind of dynamic, responsive, and
resilient planning needed in the turbulent years ahead must be
something like 90 percent emphasis on human dynamics and 10
percent emphasis on procedural mechanics or processes.
The number of organizations that have not clearly defined their
business mission is surprising. They have never bothered to ask, ''Why
are we in business?" (or, for a nonprofit organization, "Why do we
exist?"). Another way of phrasing this all-important question is "What
is the basic utility we are geared to deliver?"
And what, pray tell, does that have to do with planning? The whole
purpose of strategic and tactical planning is to calculate future market
needs for this basic utility and to make provision and decisions to
fulfill these expectations.
Don't wait to start your planning program. If you hold back until you
are meticulously prepared in every detail to establish magnificent
objectives, let's face ityou'll never get started. The important thing is
to set your goals and get the planning machinery under way. You
must, of course, be impatient with your plans and their progress. But
you won't have anything to refine and improve if you don't make a
beginning.
Where do you begin? With a thoroughly fortified knowledge of your
consumer. Time and again, companies have built a product and
thenand only thenset out to determine who wanted it and how to
distribute it. This is asking for disaster. Base all your plans directly or
indirectly on a
Figure 5.2. A system of leadership by expectations.
Page 47
well-researched fund of data, a never-ending hunger, about what the
consumers want, where they want it, when they want it, who they are,
how they want it, andabove allwhy they want it. Imaginative closedloop systems of customer information input, retrieval, and use are
imperative.
Your other main source of inspiration for the plan is your own people.
Modern tough-minded leaders know they can gain additional insights,
hunches, clues, and hard data from their entire team if they exert the
self-control and discipline needed to truly tap their expectations.
Leaders know they are accountable for the decisions implicit in the
job but want the best and most realistic future-oriented ideas they can
get. Above all, modern executives need visionboth macro and micro.
The overall conceptual schema for strategic planning is shown in
Figure 5.3. Because of the excellent current books on strategic
planning, I have deliberately omitted additional elaboration on these
key components. The need for more complete detail in these areas
should be implicit in the tough-minded leaders' assumptions. The
books of George Morrisey are particularly recommended for this
purpose.
Phase 3: Organize
The whole lexicon of organizational terms and concepts must change
significantly in the context of the total tough-minded leadership
approach to the turbulent decade ahead. My premise is that since the
logical deployment of strengths is the organizational paradigm for the
future, the following seven questions are crucial:
1. Can you truly perceive present and potential strengths in
functional design?
2. Can you truly perceive present and potential strengths in
assessing your team members?
3. Can you fit the parts together in such a way that you create not
only a logical synthesis but also a symbiotic and synergistic whole?
4. Does every function make a discernible and measurable
contribution to objectives, goals, and philosophy?
5.
Will the new organization lend itself to perpetuity and stability?
6. Is there sufficient balance of functions and personalities to
constitute a true team?
7. Finally, does your key criterion ensure that the organization
lends itself to blended expectations?
Phase 4: Expectations and Execution
In Figure 5.4, we see some of the real nuts and bolts of expective
management. Clear definition of the assignment must be effectively
(and concurrently) delegated and communicated in such a way that
team members
Page 48
Figure 5.3. Strategic planning process.
understand the what, where, when, who, how, and why in the specific
context of their jobs, and in relation to the standards of performance
expected.
Team members' understanding of the results you expecttheir accountabilityshould be so thorough that you can exercise full release and
trust. Of course, hand in hand with that trust goes feedback: you must
receive performance information in the form and at the intervals you
expect. Consultive decision making is an exercise in democracy,
wisdom, and practicality. It provides the involvement that leads to
commitment and conviction (take another look at Figure 5.1 earlier in
this chapter).
This kind of interactive decision making also allows you to get the
best
Page 49
Figure 5.4. Designing functional assignments.
information possible from your team to help make sound decisions. In
sum, it requires that you analyze the alternatives, balance the benefits,
and calculate the contingencies.
To effectively carry out the elements in Phase 4, you will need a
sound understanding of all that has been discussed in this book.
Phase 5: Coordination (Synergize)
Expective coaching is the wave of the future. I believe we can
confidently expect to see new research, insights, and techniques in this
area. It is crucial if we are to achieve optimum coordination.
Page 50
For team members to experience a positive and developmental
coaching experience, it is important that they:
Perceive the what, where, when, who, how, and why of their
present and expected performance. It is particularly important that
team members understand the whythe stuff of real motivation.
Feel a strong identification with overall goals, objectives, and
standards. Without such a feeling, nothing approaching optimum
coaching and coordination will take place.
Believe that their strengths are what you value about them.
Remember, people's total valuecurrent and potentialis the sum of the
values they exemplify. To focus on individual or group weaknesses is
not only unproductive, it is counterproductive, because it tends to
rigidify behavior into nonmalleable fragments.
You are the sum of your strengths.
You are the sum of your values.
You are the sum of your expectations.
AND
They are indivisible!
Phase 6: Strengths Affirmation
If we believe that a person's deepest need is a need for significance, it
follows that our own feelings of significance grow in direct
relationship to a growing awareness of our strengths as leaders and as
total people. The converse also is true. When we search for, dwell on,
and reiterate a person's weakness, we stultify that person's
possibilities, reduce feelings of significance, inhibit growth on and off
the job, and seriously hamper performance.
To overemphasize the weaknesses of people is to shackle them with a
miserable self-image. On the other hand, to strive diligently and
truthfully and very consistently to help them know, understand, and
use their strengths is to set them free.
Clear-eyed, objective,and consistent affirmation of strengths is one of
the great pleasures for committed, expective leaders. They discover
this adds zest and gusto to all their relationshipswith their families and
their team members as well.
Phase 7: Control
The term control conjures up visions of massive printouts,
intimidating computer hardware and software, knitted brows, somber
prognoses, and all the paraphernalia of a modern management
information system (MIS).
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And certainly these are important. No manager questions the value of
a thoughtful system of budgets or profit plans. Much of the real value
of a budget, however, is the painstaking analysis and study that
precedes the actual figures.
I would like, in addition, to suggest that modern controls should meet
two general sets of requirements. First, they should be:
Stretching
Economical
Meaningful
Appropriate
Timely
Simply stated and simple to operate
Second, it should be understood that the best of all controls is a fused,
focused, loyal group of people who know:
What is expected of them
What they expect
Just as the whole concept of data-driven control must be relegated to
the past, we must suffuse all new considerations of control with the
terms customer-led and data-responsive. This becomes the basis for a
badly needed overhaul of dated concepts of historical accounting.
Remember the relatively obsolete manager manages data. The new
leader leads people.
Above all, real control is a system of expectations, with calibrated
checkpoints that indicate precisely how well the expectations are
being met. Phase 7 flows into Phase I and the loop closesa system of
motivation for results, fueled and guided by expectations.
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CHAPTER 6
MASTERS OF STRENGTHS DEPLOYMENT
The strengths of an organization can be no stronger than the strengths of the
personal relationships, the quality of the minds, and the strength of the shared
values within it.
The only purpose of organization is to make one plus one equal
threeor more. Two people must accomplish more than twice the work
of one person or there is no organization! A new concept? Startling
discovery? Hardly. This fundamental truth has been recognized for
decades. It is the foundation of all systems of methods improvement,
mass production, automation, and specialization.
In fact, there is a growing feeling today that we are nearing the end of
the time of seeking increased efficiency through organization. Many
sophisticated professionalshuman resource specialists, professors,
psychologists,
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and consultantsare preaching that the road to combined productive
effort is through disorganization: using job enlargement,
decentralization, task forces, matrix management, and unstructured
social interaction.
Others believe that various permissive approaches are the answer.
They advocate shared accountability, line-staff committees, junior
boards, collective goal setting, and other so-called democratic
processes. Some experts have completely given up trying to organize
for greater human productivity and have turned to organizing
machines instead of people.
All these "solutions" to the basic problem are superficial, piecemeal,
disparate, patchwork, makeshift approaches that fall pitifully short of
the breakthrough needed to realize the limitless and barely tapped
potential of joint human effort.
A complete shift of emphasis must take place! Molding and
manipulating people to achieve predefined patterns of behavior and
dropping them into preconceived slots on an organization chart
without regard for their individual strengths may make you feel
powerful and important, but it is about as effective in achieving
excellence as a square wheel. Compressing a person to fit a position
that has been carefully interrelated to other positions (which in turn
are filled by compressing other people) may be neat and orderly and
will probably work moderately wellif you get rid of the people who
won't stay compressed. Unfortunately, those are the people whose
individuality you most need.
ORGANIZING BY STRENGTHS
The issue is clear: Do you want an organization with no loose ends? A
box for everyone and everyone in his box? An organization where
exceptions to the rule (even in the form of exceptional people who
seldom follow the rules) are not allowed to exist, or at best only barely
tolerated? An organization that runs moderately well, is moderately
safe and secure, makes a moderate profit, enjoys moderate growth,
and provides you and your team with a moderate degree of
satisfaction and a moderate sense of achievement? If you prefer this
approach, you need not feel guilty. Many doand suffer no disgrace.
But you may want an organization that plugs into the G forces of the
future, leads the parade, sets the pace in profit, growth, products,
service, methods, and concepts; one that always seems able to come
up with the breakthrough when it's needed; one that keeps its
competitors so busy catching up they don't have time for anything
else. If so, if you want to reap the rewards that justice dictates must
always fall to the victor, you must make a fundamental decision: to
expand people, not compress them, to build on their strengths, not
focus on their weaknesses.
It isn't always easy. It requires weaving together a group of basically
self-directed people, all doing what they do best, so as to achieve
singleness
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of purpose and unity of direction. This, in turn, requires great artistry.
Egalitarian teams, led by the first among equals, are the wave of
tomorrow.
If, finally, you decide to strive for excellence and seek exceptional
performance, then you must back your decision with demonstration,
not just conversation, and begin building on strengthsstarting with
yourself. You also need to help your basically self-directed people
realize that the one best way to grow as individuals is to build others
constantly.
Organizing by strengths takes a lot of self-control and self-discipline.
Be careful to include your own strengths along with those of your
staff. You must be directly and deeply involved in the achievement of
transcendent dreams and organizational objectives. Don't just sit back
and oversee what is going on; use your own talents to accomplish
specific tasks.
To develop these crucial qualities, we start with Phase 1 of the servosystem of strengths management (see Figure 6.1). Here we are
applying this servo-system to the tough-minded manager as an
individual; in Chapter 14 we'll use the servo-system with
organizational operations.
AN EXERCISE FOR IDENTIFYING STRENGTHS
I have had the privilege of seeing some truly productive and beautiful
things happen in client organizations to teams of all kinds and sizes
when they begin to understand and practice systematic methods of
strengths building. There are several methods for making this work;
here's one I have used:
1.
Seat your group in a circle (don't have more than twenty people).
2.
Have them all (working individually) write down ten strengths
they have identified in themselves.
3. Ask each person to look at each member of the group one at a
time and mentally identify one significant strength in each person.
4. Starting at any point in the circle, choose the first subject. Ask
the person on his or her left to name one significant strength about
that person. Then proceed on around the circle until everyone has
shared a strength-oriented perception of that person.
5. Move on to the second subject, then the third, and so on until
everyone has had a turn. Provide whatever guidance is needed to keep
the remarks totally positive and strength based. No negatives of any
kind are permitted.
Every single person in a group of twenty hears nineteen strengthbased comments about himself or herself from nineteen different
personalities in nineteen different ways. Many people of even mature
years may hear, for the first time, the kind of affirmation and
reassurance most of us are hungry and thirsty for.
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Figure 6.1. A servo-system of strengths management.
Another important bonus is that this is usually the first time people
have ever been asked to identify, perceive, and articulate strengthsand
only strengthsin anyone else. Now they are asked to do so nineteen
times, and their minds literally start to reroute brain circuits. A vital
process of renewal is underway.
At a seminar in Milwaukee I worked for one whole day on this
exercise with forty company presidents. (Forty is really too large;
smaller, more intimate groups are more effective.) At the end of the
day they felt that they knew one another better than they did their own
team members with whom they had worked many years.
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This kind of group experience provides special, important benefits to
a team. For instance:
High levels of confidence and self-esteem; liberating knowledge of
self.
New insights into the wants, needs, and possibilities of team
leaders, customers, and clients.
Improved capacity to spring back resiliently from disappointments
and setbacks.
Much greater capacity for longer work days and other
manifestations of stamina. When the body is basically healthy, most
fatigue is caused by an orientation to weaknesses.
Whenever we dwell on our own weakness, we tend to look for and
relate to weaknesses of everything and everyone around us.
THE RENEWAL ORGANIZATION
A renewal organization is one committed to tough-minded leadership.
The essential purpose of the renewal organization is to multiply
individual productivity to attain greater value-added results through
joint human effort, through people empowerment, through clarity of
vision, and through deployment of strengths. Building on strengths
requires knowledge, understanding, and acceptance of yourself and
your associates. It also requires a creative and flexible approach to the
assignment of tasks and functions. Such an approach is necessary in
order to match the demands of the new flexible organization with its
ever-increasing emphasis on value-added Ps for the enhancement of
the customer and the unique and changing needs of its human
resources.
There is a tremendous gap between what people are doing and what
they can do. We cannot jump this chasm with one great leap forward,
but the gap must be bridged, and quickly. Doing so is the source of the
true joy of leadership: the sense of accomplishment that comes from
building and guiding a successful business and at the same time
knowing the ultimate in human endeavorbuilding people and
enhancing the customer.
Throughout this book, I am stressing the primacy of people! However,
here is a perfect way to use the enormous capabilities of technology,
particularly computers: to help us identify, classify, access, and use the
strengths of our people. Computerized strengths banks will be at the
heart of the style of leaders of the future.
Strength-based controls are liberating! I predict that the really fine
organizations of the 1990s will select people for critical assignments
by accessing their strengths banks, rather than relying on traditional
criteria such as degrees, seniority, color, race, religion, appearance,
job classifications, or what-have-you. Focused, laserlike deployment
of strengths will ultimately become the norm.
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BUILDING TEAM SYNERGY
Once strengths have been identified, you are well on your way to
building powerful teams. Some key techniques and considerations for
effective team building include the following steps:
1. Conduct sound and relevant research about wants, needs, and
possibilities.
2.
Take time to define what you want or expect to accomplish.
3.
Set the example.
4. Allow for differences in the personalities, ambitions, and
attitudinal sets of team members.
5.
Develop consensus and unanimity.
6. Give steady feedback to provide progress data, recognition, and
feelings of belonging and significance.
7. Stress the importance of each team member acquiring greater
skill in asking legitimate, caring questions.
8. Be sure to teach and exemplify that a question is infinitely more
powerful than a declarative statement in practical persuasiveness.
9. Seek to ensure the mutuality of motives and expectations of all
members of the team.
10.
Base all assignments on the logical deployment of strengths.
Finally, be aware that the excellent team has tempo, defined as ''the
speed with which an organization identifies problems and
opportunities and makes and implements decisions." If you intend to
meet the requirements of the turbulent decade, controls and effective
team building must be indivisible.
Team building is something of a "hot" topic these days; we see articles
and how-to advice almost everywhere we turn. But that doesn't mean
it is easy. The forces that work against building strong teams are
rampant. Some common ones include:
The failure to realize that an objective, a motive, and an expective
are virtually the same. Interpretations of the word objective have done
much to shortchange the motivational possibilities inherent in it.
Team members not understanding the what, where, when, who,
how, and above all the why of their jobs and their organization.
Lethargy, politicking, apathy, inefficiency, work of poor quality,
and just plain lack of caring because "management" has not provided
sufficient purpose and direction. There are thousands of "major
managers" in this country today who will simply not be capable of
rectifying such conditions in their organizational units unless they
receive skilled counseling and development as individuals!
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Leaders who live, talk, and work in terms of what they are against
instead of what they are for.
To instill the kind of vitality needed to fuel the vision, we need:
A mutual feeling of caring about each other, a feeling that our
colleagues and team members are walking bundles of uniqueness and
strengths.
The freedom to be emotionally vulnerable, open, and receptive to
the wants, needs, problems, and possibilities of others.
A reduced amount of "telling"that is, abrasiveness, knee-jerk
machismo, directiveness, pushing, and crowding. In contrast, take the
word tell and turn it around so that it becomes let. I do not mean
apathetic permissiveness. I mean letting team members feel involved,
part of a strong, expectation-oriented approach.
A strong, compelling example.
A vital style and tone, one that comes from the chief executive
officer through the chief operating officer and permeates the entire
team.
Clear and stretching expectations. This is one of the best possible
ways to express your dedication and commitment to your team. I
believe that when you care enough about a person to find out his or
her best qualities, encourage these qualities, and expect commitment
and conviction, you are demonstrating dedication, respect, and
genuine affection.
A lean headquarters and central staff; a sense of leanness
throughout the entire organization.
All the other elements described in the various cybernetic circles
throughout this book.
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CHAPTER 7
GREAT CHANGEMASTERS ARE GREAT
COMMUNICATORS
We rule the world by our words.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
In literally hundreds of seminars and workshops, and in hundreds of
private counseling sessions with managers, my colleagues and I have
sought to determine what is really at the core of the management job.
After innumerable discussions, and after reviewing the results of
numerous surveys, I have concluded that the total effectiveness of
leaders rises or falls in direct proportion to their face-to-face
communication skillstheir interpersonal insights and actions.
What is the definition of communication? I have never had any
member of a seminar audience who could give me the dictionary
definition. And this is one of those instances where the definition of a
word actually helps
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you perceive a lot of things about its meaning, its anatomy, and how
to do it. We can define communication in four words:
Communication: shared meaning, shared understanding.
These four words, in a sense, say it all. Is there anything more we
need for successful relationships? For successful family life? For
successful job performance?
FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATION TOOLS
The tough, elusive elements that are found in truly effective one-toone relationships are:
Vulnerability
Openness
Positive listening
Kinesics
High expectations
Avoiding judgments
Reinforcement
Caring
Integrity
Let's examine these elements one by one in the light of the statement
that communication means "shared meaning, shared understanding."
Vulnerability
Real leadersnot those equipped with political, financial, or military
powerhave known for centuries that the courage to become and
remain vulnerable in their relations with others requires strength and
toughness. That kind of courage also develops strength.
Most of us know, on careful reflection, that the defensive,
invulnerable person plateaus early in life in terms of growth, vitality,
and the capacity to obtain "followership," without which a leader can't
lead. Such a person ceases to act. And when we begin to react to
people and events, we become static and rigid rather than flexible and
responsive.
It is my belief that enlightened behavioral science research will
increasingly prove that the confrontive requirements of vulnerability
are vastly more developmental and effective than the avoidance
expedient of invulnerability and defensiveness. Who grows when they
flee? Who grows when they defend? Who grows when they covet
safety and comfort?
A fundamental requirement for the leader who seeks this new,
stretching attitude is a high measure of self-esteem. Years ago, I wrote
in Tough-
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Minded Management that real, sustaining self-confidence was the
scarcest ingredient in managers. This still applies in full measure! It is
the quintessential element of the fully functioning person.
It requires confidence, courage, and vulnerability to truly open up and
feel real interest in what the other person is saying. It is when we stick
our neck out, when we rally from rebuffs, failures, and insufficiences,
when we take risks in the human enterprise that we truly strengthen,
toughen, and grow.
Openness
In a dictionary sense, open means "available, exposed, given access
to, not covered." The capacity to achieve and maintain truly open
relationships is a byproduct, a bonus, of vulnerability. Through
openness, we are able to let the other person in and let ourselves out.
This is an essential requirement for face-to-face synergy. The person
whose constant concern is to "cover his tail" simply cannot stay out in
front.
Our capacity to interact openly, free of self-defeating defensiveness,
increases steadily as we confront stretching objectives, obstacles,
difficulties, and possibilities. A crucial requirement in such
confrontation is that we must concurrently carry out a quest for new
strengthsin ourselves first, and then in others. As individuals, we are
the sum of our strengths.
As this strong self-awareness builds, we become increasingly able to
reach out in a sensitive and truly interested way to others. We begin to
develop more capacity to really listen, to really hear, to empathically
relate to what the other person is saying and feeling. The toughminded person learns to relish the growth and stimulation that occurs
as a result of such openness.
Positive Listening
We define negative listening as "the tendency to hear the other person
out and then say what you were going to say anyway." In other words,
to listen and not really hear at all. Many managers who have absorbed
much literature and training in all other facets of communication then
negate all that valuable knowledge by this phony practicepurporting to
listen when they are only waiting for an opportunity to talk.
Real positive listening must be much more than an act or pose. The
tough-minded leader cultivates and develops a genuine desire to know
what the team member is really saying and feeling. He or she lets the
other person in and lets himself or herself out. Such enhanced
listening and hearing skills are made possible by the kind of emotional
vulnerability, confidence, and openness that develop as true strength
awareness and orientation evolve. Such confident, positive listening is
crucial because in its absence virtually every other so-called technique
of excellent leadership will be aborted.
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Kinesics
Much has been written about body English, and the general subject is
no doubt familiar to all of us. The important thing in face-to-face
communication in this connection is that we should not judge the
kinesics of another according to past biases or stereotypes. Such
stereotypes close us in and close others outpreeisely when we should
be opening up and stretching for new insights. It is possible to become
so preoccupied with the body English of the other person that you
introduce phoniness and affectation into the situation.
We must learn, for example, to really reach out to people who present
stiff facial expressions, and seek to understand them rather than
automatically concluding that they are uninterested or hostile. It could
be that they are thinking seriously about what we are saying.
Frequently more real communication, the kind that will be retained, is
happening in this situation than in the ease of the person who seems to
respond quickly. When such needless impasses build, it is the major
responsibility of the stronger and more mature person to reach out
rather than to withdraw. The strong leader reaches out; the lukewarm
manager pulls back.
BATTEN'S LAW OF COMMUNICATION
When the communicat ee does not understand what the communicat or
intended, the responsibility remains that of the communicat or.
Here is a crucial distinction between the tough-minded and the hardminded person. If leaders are confident enough, secure enough, they
can reach out and practice an attitude of genuine caring about others.
When there is enough of this vital concern and caring, the kinesics
will be the right ones.
High Expectations
Perhaps the quickest and most effective way to destroy effective
communication is to create a vacuum of recognition, a situation where
the other person feels ignored and insignificant. Fundamentally, we all
know this, but the failure to act on that knowledge is one of the
continuing weaknesses of too many managers.
It is clear that we can denigrate and turn people off by expecting their
second best, or their worst. It is equally true (although not attempted
as often) that we can create synergistic communication and
achievement when we care enough to expect much. In this way (and I
believe it is the single best way) we help the other person feel
significant. To use one's best and
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most unique gifts and to be able to do so because someone cared
enough to discover them is a profound experience. Central to all
human needs is this one imperative: to feel in some way significant as
a person.
Avoiding Judgments
Face-to-face communication becomes and remains challenging, fresh,
and often delightful if we avoid judgments (which are usually based
on a preoccupation with the weaknesses of others). Instead of making
judgments that close us in and close others out, we should constantly
draw on our face-to-face relations, on the liberating power of ongoing
dynamic evaluations. We must rigorously resist the temptation to
label, box, or categorize others. Such rigid tendencies are not only
counterproductive in the managerial sense, but they also take the
challenge and joy out of face-to-face relationships. Instead, we should
try to see the other person as being in a state of flow, of ongoing
growth.
There is a subtle but important difference between judgment and
evaluation. Judgment in the usual sense involves looking for and
relating to other people's weaknesses. Evaluation stems from a search
for and assessment of their valuesin short, their strengths.
Reinforcement
Positive reinforcement and our tough-minded term build on strengths
mean one and the same. One definition of reinforcement is "to
strengthen with new force," and it is crucial to perceive that the only
way synergistic communication can be built is through the combined
strength of the individuals. Weakness is only the absence of a strength.
Strong, effective communication cannot be wrought from absences.
Each of us is defined or profiled by our strengths. They and they alone
comprise what we are.
Thus, we must begin looking (and, in fact, never stop looking) for
strengths in ourselves. Then, and only then, are we able to perceive,
relate to, and further build on the strengths of another person.
Positive reinforcement can be, and often is, only a fatuous phrase
unless it derives its nourishment from real self-confidence. And real
self-confidence can be fully functional only in relationship to other
people. An organization must do all it can to create a work climate in
which people are respected for who they are and recognized for their
contributions and a lob well done.
Caring
We can care enough about other people only if we care about and for
the one we see reflected in the mirror. This insight is needed
everywhere in the organization, but perhaps especially among human
resources executives. In essence, caring is an integral part of face-toface communication.
We must care enough to really listen positively. We must care enough
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to reexamine every policy, program, principle, practice, procedure,
and person. Top management is looking for the kind of leader who
can make this happen.
Integrity
It means "the state of being entire, wholeness, probity, honesty."
Although Webster has not said so, I believe the words integrity and
strength are synonymous. Without one you cannot have a full measure
of the other. No material (plastic, wood, iron, paper, or anything else)
has strength without integrity of structure.
Please note that none of these single components of good
communication will ensure excellent communication by itself. Nor
will the combination of them all be consistently effective if one
ingredient is missing. That ingredient is integrity. It is needed for the
crucial melding of all the other elements. It is not only practical and
desirable, it is necessary. Without integrity there is no credibility, and
without credibility, no true communication can happen.
To talk much and arrive nowhere is the same as climbing a tree to catch a
fish.
CHINESE PROVERB
COMMUNICATING FROM STRENGTH:
A CASE STUDY IN COMMUNICATION STYLES
Recently, as I was between planes at O'Hare International Airport, I
had two very interesting experiences. I was walking along, swinging
my briefcase, feeling good, when I heard someone call, "Hey, Joe,
how're you doing?"
I turned around and walking toward me was a well-groomed, prosperous-looking man. He held out his hand and said, "Joe, it's good to see
you. I think I've read almost every book you've ever written. I think I
may have seen all of your films [twenty-one of them]. I've heard a lot
of your cassettes and, Joe, awhile back in Harrisburg I heard you
speak for three hours."
I was beginning to glow. I said, "It's really good to see you," and
started to walk along.
"Wait a minute, Joe," he continued, "I'd like to talk to you a little bit.
You know, when you think about it, I've spent literally hours in the
dark watching you on film and reading those books. I've spent many
hours of reading, I've even listened to your tapes as I lay in bed."
Well, I decided I should spend a little time with this fellow, so I
answered, "That's really interesting."
"One of the things that I've gathered from your books is that you be-
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lieve in candor. There are three different chapters in your books on
candor."
"That's right."
"You reach a lot of people, don't you?"
"Yes, I suppose I do."
"Well, Joe, I'd like to sit down then and talk with you about you. Can
we go down to the Red Carpet Room here?"
I had about two hours before my flight, so I agreed. As we walked
along, I noticed that this fellow was articulate, intelligent, and
sincere. I casually asked, "What did you want to talk about?"
"Joe, like I said, I've really studied you, and I think I have an almost
encyclopedic knowledge of your weaknesses."
Startled, I exclaimed, "What?" After a short pause I mumbled, "Gosh,
I just realized that I'd better get over to TWA and catch my flight."
"When does your flight leave?" he asked, and, of course, I had to tell
him the truth. "No problem," he said, "this'll only take twenty
minutes." And so we continued toward the Red Carpet Room.
I found myself walking slightly behind him, hoping I could lose him in
the crowd, but he kept an eye on me. When we arrived at the Red
Carpet Room, we found an empty corner and sat down for our talk.
Sure enough, this was a man of his word; he really had done a job on
studying my weaknesses. He proceeded, even though he didn't know
he was doing it, to do a job on me. He zeroed right in and, remember,
he was articulate, intelligent, and sincere. After about three minutes of
this criticism, I felt awful.
I sat there knowing I should be open, that I should hear him because I
believe in candor. And yet, in spite of myself, my guard began to go
up. The defenses, the retorts, the rebuttal began to form in my mind. I
knew I should keep quiet and listen, and so I didbut my defenses had
risen very high. Even though I knew I should try to hear every word he
was saying, I didn't really hear him at all.
Finally, I sensed that the twenty minutes were about over. By then, I
had a little knot in my stomach. Even though I didn't know this fellow
very well, I had decided there were a few things I should tell him.
"Yeah, buddy," I said, "and I wanted to mention these things to you"
At this, he jumped up and held his hand out with a big smile. "It's been
great, foe, I've got to run." And away he went.
I watched him dash out for his plane and muttered after him, "Yeah,
buddy, thanks for the dialoguemostly monologue."
I sat there with all the starch gone from my spine and a knot in my
stomach. Finally, I got up and began to walk toward my boarding
area. After a bit, I was beginning to feel pretty good again, beginning
to get a
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little bounce back in my stride. As I got within about fifty feet of the
boarding area, I heard a voice.
"Hey, Joe, how're you doing?" I turned around and walking toward
me was another well-groomed, prosperous-looking guy. He walked up,
gave me a warm hand-shake and said, "Joe, it's good to see you."
"Well," I said, somewhat less than honestly, "it's good to see you, too."
"Joe, you won't believe this, but I think I've seen all of your films."
"That's good," I replied, and started to walk on.
"Wait a minute, Joe. Would you believe I've read all your books?" As
he continued, I thought to myself, Wow, another one! "And, I've heard
a lot of your cassette albums. Joe, you believe in candor, don't you?"
"Well, at the right time and place."
"You reach a lot of people, don't you?"
"Well . . . not as many as you might think."
"I know you do, and you're being modest. Joe, I would like you to
walk down to the Ambassador's Lounge with me. I'd like to talk to you
for about twenty minutes."
I glanced at my watch and saw that I had about an hour left. "I don't
know whether I have time or not."
"What time does your plane leave?" he asked. And, of course, I had to
tell him the truth, tie smiled and said, "Plenty of time. This will only
take twenty minutes."
I started to walk along with him and, as we walked, I noticed four
things about this fellow. He was intelligent, articulate, sincere, and he
meant well.
I snapped at him, knowing I shouldn't, "What do you want to talk
about?"
He smiled again. "Joe, I want to talk to you about your strengths."
Now it was my turn to smile. "Great! Let's talk for a couple of hours."
"I'd like to," he responded, "but I've only got about twenty minutes."
"Then, let's get at it!"
This guy zeroed right in on the strengths he had observed and on the
additional strengths he felt I have but haven't even used yet. Even
more important, he talked about ways I could use my present strengths
better. My defenses dissolved. I let him in and I let me out. The thing
called synergy began to happen. If you mix a couple of chemicals
together and the result is explosive, it's a synergistic action. When two
and two add up to five or more, that's synergy. When the whole is
greater than the sum of the parts, that's synergy.
So as we sat there, the combined total of two men was significant.
Because I let him in and I let me out, I heard every word he was
saying and related to his chemistry. Suddenly I realized with a start
that the twenty minutes were over. I wanted to point out some of these
good things I ob-
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served in him and started to say, ''Yes, and I want to say to you" when
he looked at his watch, jumped to his feet, stuck his hand out, and
said, "Joe, I've got to run; it's been great to see you." And away he
went.
Now, remember, over at the Red Carpet Room, when the first man had
to dash for his plane, I said, "Thanks for the dialoguemostly
monologue." Now, to this fellow I used the overused and
undercomprehended word communication. "Thanks, buddy, thanks for
the communication."
Of course by now you have guessed that these two "conversations"
are actually composites of hundreds of conversations I have had in
dozens of airports over the years. Let's explore some of the key
elements involved in real communication. Here are some of the things
those "encounters" in O'Hare demonstrate:
A discussion of weaknesses usually raises defenses. The only valid
reason for identifying weaknesses is to determine what additional
strengths are needed or what is needed to further develop existing
strengths.
When we feel threatened by a weakness-oriented approach, we
become defensive whether we really want to or not.
Only dialogue and monologue can seep through such defenses.
Shared meaning and shared understandingthe essence of
communicationcan happen only when these defenses are dissolved by
a focus on strengths.
It is very difficult to be open and vulnerable (necessary conditions
for real communication) if approached in a weakness-oriented way.
It is relatively easy to begin to dissolve your defenses and really
perceive, feel, and hear what the strength-oriented person is
attempting to communicate.
It is reassuring and reaffirming to learn more about our present and
potential strengths. We become able to exchange and share intentions,
goals, and expectations.
If we dwell on others' weaknesses, we'll never truly get to know
one another.
If we steadily search forand expect to findan ever-increasing
number of strengths in others, we can come to truly know one another.
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CHAPTER 8
THE NEW ENTREPRENEUR
The wave of the future in American business, it seems to me, is with the
entrepreneurs! The day of the true entrepreneur seems to have arrived.
HAROLD GENEEN, FORMER CHAIRMAN ITT
IN MANAGING
The Golden Age of Entrepreneurism may be approaching. Never
before in U.S. history has the awareness of business opportunities
been so great. In "The Spirit of Enterprise" (Forbes, February 1987),
George Gilder says of the entrepreneur:
The entrepreneurs sustain the world. In their career of optimizing
calculation . . . they overthrow establishments rather than establish
equilibria. They are heroes of economic life.
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This new entrepreneur is a synergistic blend of traditional acquisitive,
deal-making, self-serving qualities, and the lean, tested, distilled
essence of professional leadership principles, seasoned with whiffs of
statesmanship.
The most valuable one hundred people to bring into a deteriorating society,
like, for instance, Peru, would not be one hundred chemists or politicians
or professors or engineers, but rather one hundred entrepreneurs.
PSYCHOLOGIST ABRAHAM MASLOW, EUPSYCHIAN MANAGEMENT (1965)
The tough-minded entrepreneur seeks high adventureall kinds of
changes, transitions, and reversals. In this chapter I hope to provide
some focus and perspective on the entrepreneurial nation we can
become. Much change is imperative!
Ross Perot, the dynamic founder of Electronic Data Systems, has
demonstrated with superlative success how this can be done. Always
hungry to grow, change, learn, and excel, he recognized over two
decades ago that "entrepreneurism" as a hectic, seat-of-the-pants style
could not long endure if he was to lead EDS to true global success. He
also knew that the tight, tidy, and sterile notion of the professional
management process that was then considered the normplan, organize,
coordinate, execute, and controlwas not the full answer. His toughminded blend of the best of these two possible worlds is now history,
and his greatest achievements are almost certainly still to come.
Five remarkable and inspiring examples of the new entrepreneur are
Steven lobs of NEXT, Inc. (together with Perot), Mitchell Kapor of
Lotus Development Corporation (he recently turned it over to his
team), Lane Nemeth of Discovery Toys, Doug Tompkins of Esprit,
and Fred Smith of American Express.
ACTION STEPS FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESS
For the past several years my colleagues and I have worked with
many small organizations who want to achieve the kind of success
that occurred at EDS under the leadership of Perot. In the process we
developed some action steps that we recommend to launch successful
entrepreneurial rockets. They include:
Establish a company philosophy that reflects your vision of the
possible and that stresses integrity, service, quality, constant change,
and other tough-minded components of this book. The vision lives in
the intensity, focus, and overall example of you, the leader.
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Find a market niche, a gap, a unique want, need, or possibility.
Develop a business plan, an action planand get started!
Incessantly and hungrily seek to learn more and more about the
wants and needs of your market. Ask, listen, hear. Survey, research,
analyze, and evaluate.
Provide your original investors the opportunity to profit in any
feasible and generous way.
Stay organized; use small steps until you have sufficient market,
cash flow, teamwork, and knowledge.
Court, woo, and seek to enrich your customers.
Recognize that your people are the be-all and end-all, the alpha
and the omega.
Hire the best people you can, using tough-minded methods of
strengths discovery, assessment, and deployment.
Provide and lead them through thorough, imaginative, and ongoing
training. Train, train, train!
Tie compensation directly to customer-related performance.
Expect their best at all times and reflect that in every dimension of
your "P" pyramid.
Give them part of the action and generate entrepreneurial
excitement.
Explore the vast untapped possibilities of telemarketing.
Imaginatively done, it can be tremendous. Avoid canned approaches.
They are a blatant insult to the listener, and they fly directly in the
face of the caring, sensitive methods recommended in this book.
Be generous with wages, salaries, profit sharing, benefits, and
imaginative new perquisitesand tie them directly to performance. I
cannot overemphasize the importance of this.
Develop an error-free system of reporting. Before finalizing your
management information system, make the effort to research and
determine precisely what kind of information you and your team
need, how much you need, and when you need it. Stress progress
reports, not activity reports.
Develop a strategy and specific tactics dedicated to the growth,
fulfillment, and profit of your customer. Devote all appropriate
training sessions, mentoring sessions, staff meeting agenda, and action
plans to this. Make sure that all team members know this is the
number-one priority for every job and reward.
Don't neglect pricing policy and strategies. Charge enough to
ensure perpetuation of ever-improving quality commitments.
Even as you build a "climate for mistakes" and encourage
creativity, innovation, risk taking, and boldness, endeavor to establish
a system to detect mistakes as early and consistently as possible.
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Become obsessed with service, quality, change, and strengths
recognition and deployment. Root out passivity. Make room for a
passionate style; you will become renewed rather than fatigued.
Make sure that your management controls and checkpoints are
fail-safe. Rely on computer applications as management instruments,
rather than simply data factories. This, I repeat, places the onus on
you, the leader. You must determine precisely what you need; other
needs will then become clear.
If you lose customers, pursue them, woo them, and win them
again.
Recognize the paramount and ever-present need for tenacity,
resilience, and responsiveness. Anxiety-producing events come with
the territory. This is why I continually stress the need for a total
lifestyle as a tough-minded leader rather than simply a workweek
businessperson. Mental, physical, and spiritual health are crucial to
the energetic example required constantly of the passionate leader.
Dare to dream! Envision your company as national or international
rather than local or regional. Let your mind soar as you keep both feet
on the ground. Help your team members develop excitement, scope,
reach, and stretch. Passive puttering has no place in the future for the
tough-minded entrepreneur.
Develop and communicate the idea that there are no free lunches.
Avoid dependency on government grants, subsidized loans, or "quick
fixes." One-minute solutions never workunless there are a lot of
thought, work, and application behind them.
Integrity is the most crucial of all the traits of the tough-minded
entrepreneur. That is a given. It allows you to have a less complicated
lifestyle and a higher level of mental hygieneand it's good business!
Aim constantly to become the best company in your industry.
When Ross Perot founded EDS, it was his consistent and consummate
goal from the beginning to become the best technological organization
in the world. As EDS began to grow, his team felt the constant lift of
this macro-goal. They talked it up. They felt it. How practical can you
get?
Be very careful about diversifying beyond your area of known
expertise. While it is important to grow, change, and stretch, it is also
prudent to build on known and demonstrated strengths. Diversify into
those areas that fit with and supplement your existing business.
Obtain excellent tax and legal counsel, and listen to them.
Do constructive, meaningful, and worthwhile things with the
money you earn. Keep your money working at all times.
Sell your business only if and when you are no longer excited and
turned on by what you do.
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See economic slumps as opportunities for growth. Remember,
there's always tomorrow.
Come to work each day willing to fail, and never give upnever,
never, never.
YOUR TOUGH-MINDED BUSINESS PLAN
Strangely enough, many entrepreneurs procrastinate when it comes to
researching and preparing a thorough business plan. Business plans
are different for every company, but there are common
denominatorstested guidelines and components; properly developed,
they are of inestimable value. Few legitimate investors will even want
to talk to you without one.
Cultivate the habit of constantly asking tough and penetrating
questions about you, your market, your team, your goals, your
possible pit-fallsin short, every facet of your existence. Again, it's the
tough-minded dictum:
Ask, listen, hear
in order to determine
wants, needs, and possibilities
This will get you started, by providing both the raw material and the
high-combustion energy you need to begin drafting your business
plan. Here are some key elements to consider in developing this vital
management instrument:
Clear and concise table of contents, a road map for locating
specific items of information.
Description of your company.
What business are you in?
What are your principal products, markets, services, and
consumer applications?
What is unique about you and your organization?
What is your greatest area of competence?
Marketing and market analysis
What is your market?
What is happening in your market? What will happen?
Who are your customers?
What are the major mistakes commonly made in your market?
What are you going to do about them?
Have you clearly defined the specificity and possible uniqueness
of your products or services?
Who is your competition?
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Have you talked to and researched prospective customers? What
is their reaction?
Have you determined your marketing strategy? Promotion?
Distribution? Pricing? Service? Support? Others?
Have you defined your sales strategy and tactics?
Research and development
Is you idea patentable or copyrightable? Have you done this?
Do your plans provide for constant innovation and creativity?
Manufacturing and operations
What production or operating advantage do you have?
Do you or will you have a precise knowledge of standard costs
for production at various volume levels?
Ownership and management
What is your need for key people?
How will you compensate them?
What knowledge and skills must they have?
What results have they achieved in your area?
Do you have a short-range, an intermediate, and a long-range
staffing plan?
Do you have your stock structure? Have you consulted expert
legal counsel?
Organization of human resources
Have you developed a short-range and long-range
organizational chart? Job descriptions? Personnel handbook or
manual?
What benefits will you provide? Money needed and how to use
it
How much money will you need?
How much are you budgeting for the next three years? Five
years?
Have you prepared a breakeven chart?
Do you plan to go public? If so, the elements in this brief outline
must be thoroughly and thoughtfully fleshed out. If you intend to
attract an investment banker, a business plan is not only desirable
it is essential.
Financial information
Be sure you are working with and paying attention to an
excellent accounting firm.
Ask them to help you develop a financial statement.
The opportunities to start your own business are becoming greater all
the time. In summary, clarify and write down your dream. Convert it
to specific goals and objectives. Carefully determine all external and
internal resources needed. Develop your action plan. And then, take
action!
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Brains and wit will beat capital spending ten times out of ten.
ROSS PEROT, FOUNDER, ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS
ARE ENTREPRENEURS DIFFERENT FROM CORPORATE
EXECUTIVES?
Somehow we have developed the idea that entrepreneurs and
corporate executives are two different breeds of cat, and never the
twain shall meet. In his fine and provocative book, The Entrepreneur's
Guide (1980), Deaver Brown says:
Compare for a moment the contrasting temperaments and skills demanded
by the entrepreneurial and executive careers. One can hardly imagine more
divergent personality profiles. And Jew successful executives or
entrepreneurs seem to vary much from these portraits; so make sure you
select the field most congenial to your personality or you will suffer untold
agonies trying to adopt a foreign identity. For the purposes of your sellanalysis, the following pages describe the key entrepreneurial traits in
more depth.1
Brown goes on to say that successful entrepreneurial traits include:
Shrewdness
Boldness
Instinctiveness
Enthusiasm
Endurance
Conclusive decision
making
Tenacity
Negotiating skill
Ability to win confidences of creditors and
customers
Individualism and creativity
Ability to resolve a complex assortment of
problems
Leadership
Product pride
Marketing skills
Nerve
And he concludes: "Without a strong dose of these qualities, your
venture will flounder like a wounded duck. . . . The new-venture joy
will not be there to bolster you through hard times unless you have a
personality conducive to the task."
These writings merely illustrate two all too common stereotypes:
1. (New York: Macmillan).
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The "entrepreneur" is someone who has all the traits listed above,
plus a passionate love of business.
The "corporate executive" is essentially custodial, and therefore
presumably has none of those traits.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I hope to dispel, even
obliterate these stereotypes. In reality, both the entrepreneur and the
corporate executive must study, master, and exemplify the full
transition from managing to leading. Business schools can provide an
exciting, productive, and profitable experience when they begin to
teach the indivisibility and potential synergy of both worlds as we
foster the continued development and emergence of the new
leader/entrepreneur.
ENTREPRENEUR'S CREDO
I do not choose to be a common person. It is my right to be uncommonif I
can. I seek opportunitynot security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen,
humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk, to dream and to build, to fail and to
succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole; I prefer the challenges of life to the
guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade my freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout.
I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for
myself, to enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly
and say:
This, with God's help, I have done. All this is what it means to be an
entrepreneur.
OFFICIAL CREDO OF AMERICAN ENTREPRENEURS ASSOCIATION, 1988
John Naisbitt says that in some ways, U.S. entrepreneurs are uniquely
qualified to take on the Japanese market. Entrepreneurs simply don't
take no for an answer. They also are ready to adapt to market options.
And in a country dominated by giants, there is plenty of untapped
potential for low-volume custom products. Enough success stories
have traveled back to the States to make Japan attractive to a growing
number of entrepreneurs
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who find it makes more sense to compete with Japan on her own turf
than to haggle over trade policies at home.
Rather than trying to keep out Japanese chips or raising their prices,
American entrepreneurs should be combining foreign memories and
other commodity devices with new domestic designs.
The opportunities for bold, resourceful entrepreneurs are going to be
breathtaking. To capitalize on these opportunities the new
entrepreneurno less than the new tough-minded executivewill need to
understand how to employ positive G forces as never before.
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CHAPTER 9
LEADERSHIP AND POWER
Causes, communication, commitment, and courage. These are the seminal
seeds of power.
No matter how accurately the trajectory and orbit of a space vehicle
have been plotted, nothing happens unless fuel is in the tank.
Strong, wise, and stretching leadership is simply not possible without
powerthe fuel in the tank. The very nature of the organizational
culture, its vision, goals, and specific performance requirements
depend utterly on power that is properly developed, deployed, and
used.
In his article ''Getting Rid of All the Expenses" (Executive Excellence,
June 1987), Art McNeil says:
Senior managers whose strengths lie in their technical knowledge alone are
ill equipped to be active playerslet alone winnerstn the new arena.
Suddenly, just being a "good manager" isn't enough. What's
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needed are strong leaders who know how to spark energy, enthusiasm, and
innovation among the rank and file.
Amazingly few books on management or leadership have dealt with
this crucial ingredient. In Leaders (1985), Warren Bennis and Bert
Nanus discuss the concept of power in relation to a well-known
practitioner, Chrysler Corporation's Lee Iacocca:
Almost exclusively because of Iacocca's leadership, by 1983 Chrysler
made a profit, boosted employee morale, and helped employees generate a
sense of meaning in their work.
He empowered them. In fact, we believe that Iacocca's high visibility
symbolizes the missing element in management today (and much of
management theory) in that his style of leadership is central to
organizational success. Our concept of power and leadership, then, is
modeled on the Iacocca phenomenon: power is the basic energy needed to
initiate and sustain action or, to put it another way, the capacity to translate
intention into reality and sustain it. Leadership is the wise use of this
power: Transformative leadership.1
But is the example of Iacocca enough for the future? Although his
leadership style can be characterized as stimulating and inspirational, I
feel Iacocca frequently tends to confuse directiveness with
expectiveness, that is, he tends to push rather than to lead. Starting
with yourself and extending to all the resources in the organization,
you should build an approach based on high expectations. Chrysler
has certainly begun to do this. (In fact, Chrysler uses the advertising
slogan "Expect the Best.") But I see the example of leadership at EDS,
under Ross Perot, as more advanced. Perot. has demonstrated the
power of expective as opposed to directive leadership for twenty
years.
In my book Beyond Management by Objectives (New York:
AMACOM, 1980), I wrote that:
These values and beliefs which comprise the philosophical foundation for
the grand design provide the mainstream, the arterial system, of the
business. This draws constantly on the vast mental reservoir which holds
the combined power of managerial minds in action. Each executive thus
finds himself better equipped for policy interpretation and usage which get
the job done. To harness and channel this powerto be sure that eight minds
add up to more than the sum of their individual potentialis the neverending challenge of the first-rate chief executive.
1. (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.).
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Figure 9.1. Upside-down "P" pyramid.
In other words, it is necessary to go far beyond the definition of
leadership provided by Bennis and Nanus. Leadership must be
generated by all the managers, not just by the top executive. And it is
up to the top executive to see that this happens, to see that all facets of
the organization reflect an expective rather than a directive approach.
The very vocabulary of the company, its decision-making processes,
and all the actions that impact the bottom line must change.
Let's go back now to the "P" pyramid, which, as we know, reflects the
fiber of the entire structure of the organization. I recommend that
every dimension, every organic component, of the organization be
carefully tooled to reflect these pivotal uses of power. Turn the "P"
pyramid upside down (see Figure 9.1) and look at what happens to the
flow of power.
NEW DEFINITIONS OF POWER AND CONTROL
The dictionary yields two definitions of power that illustrate the
current challenge and the requirements of tomorrow.
1. Great ability to do, act or affect strongly; vigor; force; strength;
to be able.
2.
The ability to control others; authority; sway; influence.
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The first one is for leaders. The second one is obsolete. Incidentally,
the word control is also defined in ways directly related to the G
forces of the past: "To exercise authority over; direct command; direct
or regulate; the act of controlling power."
These definitions need to be cleaned up. To make the massive shift
from directiveness to expectiveness, from pushing and driving to
leading and stretchingin short, from managing to leadingwe need new
insight, new tools, change, and action. And we need a new
vocabulary.
Above all, the concept of control must change from the obsolete
notion of "direct command" to the awareness shared by the great
leaders, the ones who are pulling their companies into the future. They
believe the best controls are dearly understood expectations, crystalclear accountability standards, and their own exemplification of
values and beliefs that attract followers because they can identify with
them. Control in the new tough-minded leadership environment may
be defined as:
Control: user-friendly information and examples provided to pull an
organization into the future and measure the performance of people,
money, materials, time, and space in achieving mutually predetermined
objectives.
Thus, the great company of the future will not be data-drivenit will be
data-responsive.
A study of winning coaches revealed that they had consistently
believed in themselves and in their team, and had high expectations
that were clearly communicated.
That's power!
THE NEW POWER TOOLS
In The Change Masters (1983), Rosabeth Moss Kanter says the three
tools of power are information, resources, and support. These tools are
certainly useful and germane, and her entire discussion of power is
outstanding. I believe, though, that we must go much further in
identifying the true power tools for the Age of the Mind.
All intrinsic power is in the mind. All other forms of power are
extrinsic.
History has clearly demonstrated the elusive and ephemeral nature of
purely directive or coercive power. Military power, economic power,
jurisdictional and political powerall become frangible. They can
crumble
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quickly. Mental power alone endures; it demands change, growth, and
forward movement.
The power of ideas reflected by example and implemented in a system
of dear, focused expectations is the single most crucial and effective
form of power for the turbulent decades ahead. Only this type of
power can catalyze the dramatic changes needed.
Power Tools for the Age of the Mind
Meaningful work for all team members.
Tempoexplosive rather than implosive energy.
Expectationsresults that pull, not push.
Accountabilitywith greatest emphasis on reinforcement and
rewards for outstanding performance, with the clear understanding
that one does a job or gets out of it.
Personal presencestimulation, emulation, and followership.
Ideasthe most practical thing in the world is applied thought, an
idea whose time has come.
Intuitiondecision-making abilities acquired by a process of
continuous growth, openness to new experiences, and emotional
vulnerability.
Granted autonomy, delegation, and empowermenttrust stemming
from personal strengths acquisition and deployment.
Reports and documents that reflect involvement and commitment
of team members.
Macro-and micro-optimization through strengths identification and
deployment.
Stretch and claritythe true mental power ingredients in all
operations.
Integrity in actionit builds followership, strengths identification,
and focused effort.
Esprit de corpsgroup spirit, sense of pride, and honor shared by
those in the same group or undertaking. The belief that "We can do
anything!"
Team synergyshared meaning, shared values, shared beliefs,
shared strengths, shared commitment, shared stretch and reward.
Open communicationwhere strengths and individuality can be
optimized and defensiveness minimized.
Focuscenteredness; intensity; a laser beam rather than diffused partitles.
A hunger for learningso-called leaders who always "know" lose
power and credibility; they are obsolete.
Unifying lift of transcendent goals, resulting in fused, focused
team effort moving forward in concert.
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The effect on your team members is powerful indeed. In Getting the
Best Out of Yourself and Others, Buck Rodgers, former vice-president
of marketing at IBM, comments about one dimension:
Properly motivated people have a sense of achievement, of being a
damental part of the total picture. If people feel proud and pleased with
their performance, they will then be ready, willing, and able to achieve
even more.2
THE POWER OF WORDS
We must change what we say because of its certain impact on what we
then do. My thirty years as a consultant and trainer of managers and
leaders have convinced me that we not only become what we think,
we become what we say.
Please join my colleagues and me in the cause of completely retooling
our lexicon of leadership from the negatively focused vocabulary used
in most management contexts.
Some of the worst offenders are:
Drive, driven
Press, pressure
Push, compress, diminish
Tell, direct, order
"I want you . . ." rather than "Will you . . ."
Hard, rigid, static
Get, take
Compel, comply, acquiesce
Invulnerable, defensive
Force, implode, shrink and contract
I, I, I
THE TRUE NATURE OF POWER
Great power should never be vested in those who compulsively seek
it. Life is not for pushing, crowding, insisting, driving, coercing, and
directingthe stuff of an addictive society.
Rather we are presented with the magnificent expective to leadto pull,
stretch, reach, grow, change, confront and, above all, to expect the
best. This is the stuff of true leadership. All the truly great leaders of
history were masters of the art of clarifying and communicating
expectations. The professional exercise of this power is often an
awesome responsibility.
2. (New York: Harper & Row, 1987).
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John W. Gardner, in his superb book No Easy Victories, has some
challenging things to say about power and its use.
People who have never exercised power have all kinds of curious ideas
about it. The popular notion of leadership is a fantasy of capricious power.
The top man presses a button and something remarkable happens. He gives
an order as the whim strikes him and the order is obeyed.
The capricious use of power is relatively rare except in some large
dictatorships and small family firms. Most leaders are hedged around by
constraintstradition, constitutional limitations, the realities of the external
situation, rights and privileges of followers, the requirements of teamwork
and, most of all, the inexorable demands of large-scale organization that
does not operate on capriciousness. We are immunizing a high proportion
of our most gifted young people against any tendencies to leadership. The
process is initiated by the society itself. The conditions of life in a modern,
complex society are not conducive to the emergence of leaders. The young
person today is acutely aware of the fact that he is an anonymous member
of a mass society, an individual lost among millions of others. The
processes by which leadership is ercised are not exceedingly intricate.
Very little in his experience encourages him to think he might someday
exercise a role of leadership. This unfocused discouragement is of little
consequence compared with the expert dissuasion the young person will
encounter if he is sufficiently bright to attend a college or university. In
some institutions today the best students are carefully schooled to avoid
leadership responsibilities.3
What a damning indictment of our society! So much of this vague
uneasiness about power is unnecessary. Again, let's tune in on what
Dr. Gardner says with such clarity and eloquence:
We don't need leaders to tell us what to do. That's not the American style
of leadership in any case. We do need men and women in every
community in the land who will accept a special responsibility to advance
the public interest, root out corruption, combat injustice and care about the
continued vitality of this land. We need such people to help us clarify and
divine the choices before us.
We need them to symbolize and voice and confirm the most deeply rooted
values of our society. We need them to tell us of our faithfulness or
infidelity to those values.
And we need them to rekindle hope. So many of us are defeated
3. The excerpt from No Easy Victories is copyright © 1969 by John W.
Gardner. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
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peoplewhatever our level of affluence or statusdefeated sometimes by life's
blows, more often by our own laziness or cynicism or self-indulgence. The
first and last task of a leader is to keep hope alivethe hope that we can
finally find our way through to a better worlddespite the day's action,
despite our own inertness and shallowness and wavering resolve.4
In my own words:
Again and again the person who fails fails because he is not willing to
shoot for the moon, to give his dream all that he has.
Leaders who can accomplish profound changes in our land and in our
people must be comfortable and skilled in the use of powerin the
deepest, purest sense of the word. And that requires:
Purpose and direction
Vulnerability to positive insights
Growth
Wonder
Caring
Excellence of example
Excellent work habits
Inspiration
Constant credibility
Dignity
Integrity
Judgment
Wisdom
Faith
Love
Courage
Hope
Vision
4. The excerpt from No Easy Victories is copyright © 1969 by John W.
Gardner. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
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CHAPTER 10
ENHANCING INNOVATION
There is much more opportunity than there are people to see it.
THOMAS EDISON
"Innovate or die" has become a clarion call in corporate corridors
across the landand high time. The arteries of a corporation harden in
direct proportion to the hardening of its management. And rigidity of
management stultifies innovative spirits.
INNOVATION STARTS AT THE TOP
In an insightful article, "Managing for Competitiveness" (Executive
Excellence, February 1988), Guy Hale says the first goal of executives
seeking to build competitive innovation is an organizational climate
that encourages, supports, and rewards innovative effort. Climate
emanates from the very top (emphasis mine) of the organization, and
must be carried out at every level of management.
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Take note of the three essentials: encourage, support, and reward. I'll
be talking more about them throughout this chapter.
To provide for innovation, we need a systematic, pervasive climate
where the organization's philosophy, principles, policies, procedures,
and all the rest of the Ps are ruthlessly renovated. All criteria in the
organization should contain intrinsic components of innovation.
Recruitment, hiring, selection, and placement procedures must reflect
this emphasis. Performance-appraisal criteria and position-evaluation
factors must demonstrate this commitment. Compensation,
promotions, and perquisites must be directly related.
And finally, those at the top must inspire everyone in the organization
with the excitement of the challenge. In organizations committed to
innovation, all team members are expected to provide evidence of this
commitment by the way they respond, the meetings they schedule, the
correspondence, memoranda, reports, and all other feedback
mechanisms they're involved in. At 3M more than two hundred
products bubble up each year from the research labs that crowd the
435-acre St. Paul campus. Approximately 6,000 scientists and
engineers are continuously stirring the pot. It is a pervasive way of
life.
INNOVATION IN ACTION
Simply talking about innovation is not the answer. Pious statements
and catchy slogans are insufficient. A corporate pledge that "we're
committed to innovation" must be accompanied by some real planning
and follow-through. Figure 10.1 shows a conceptual schema for this
kind of plan.
To make the climate of innovation a reality, leaders must be willing to
dig in and work. Here are some suggestions.
Schedule Brainstorming Sessions
As a forum for brainstorming, set up "possibility teams." As we'll see
in the next chapter, possibility teams use the basics of innovationstimulating quality circles, but they go much further. Their
brainstorming sessions are led. There is an all-out search for dormant
strengths in every dimension of the organization.
As tough-minded leadership pervades the climate of the organization,
there is a keen awareness that the only resources for innovation are the
organization's strengths. Thus, the focus of these brainstorming
sessions is the search for strengths in the peoplehow to identify them,
how to use them better.
In all ideation sessions, any mention of weaknesses, any use of
apostrophe-t's"didn't," "couldn't," "shouldn't," "can't," "won't,"
"didn't"is out of bounds. The possible is the focus. Better service and
profit through innovation is the ever-present goal.
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Figure 10.1. ''Cyber" system for innovation.
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HOW TO BREAK DOWN BARRIERS TO INNOVATION
1. Publicly applaud at least one past failure.
2. Reward at least one act of constructive defiance.
3. Knock down at least one seemingly trivial barrier in a team's way.
4. Perform at least one small facilitating act. And insist that each of your
subordinate managers do the same.
TOM PETERS, THRIVING ON CHAOS (NEW YORK: ALFRED A. KNOPF, 1987)
Institute Computerized Strengths Banks
Because the only practical discoveries or achievements possible are
of, by, about, and for people, and because people are the sum of their
strengths, we must quickly recognize the unlimited potential in the
establishment and strategic use of computerized strengths banks. In
this strengths bank, comprehensive strength profiles or resumes of all
team members are put into the computer network, where they are
available for new and imaginative ways of problem solving, decision
making, crisis coping, strategic planning, and every other nuance of
organizational operation and innovation.
Launch Pilot Projects in Profusion
Being prepared for tomorrow's complicated world requires the
successful company to reach out continually with new
experimentation, new "possibility research."
Examine every practice, every policy, every resource, every bit of
customer feedback, and use what you learn to launch pilot projects
galore. Some will fail, but some will yield riches.
Build Confidence to Liberate Creative Talent
The greatest enemy of change, the biggest hindrance to innovation, is
fear. Call it insecurity, anxiety, low concept of self, or whatever, this
factor of defensiveness must be addressed in every organization that
hopes to effectively tool for all-out innovation. Such an organization
must replace timidity with boldness. It must be obvious by now that I
recommend the optimization of strengths as the answer. When people
know their strengths are recognized and valued, they have the
confidence to move away from timidity toward innovation.
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All positive innovation stems from the progressive actualization of
strengths.
Look for the Simple Answer
One of the enduring roadblocks to quantum leaps in human
understanding and synergistic interaction is the persistent beliefwidely
taught in graduate schoolsthat complex problems require complex
solutions.
We settle for second best, at best, when we settle for a complex
answer. The tough-minded leader pulls team members forward in
restless search of simple, tough answers rather than complex, easy
answers. Settling for the complex is too easy.
Note, for instance, the team member who responds to your request for
a solution with verbosity, oblique sentences, and memos full of
compound, complex phraseology. Usually, such complex responses
are simply smoke screens for insufficient knowledge. Conversely, the
team member who is willing to do the necessary cerebration,
dedication, and perspiration can usually present the results succinctly
and simply. Complexity is a copout.
Give Generous Recognition and Rewards
The old-style manager who says, "We've got to put a ceiling on this
guyhe's making more money than I am," is a symbol of managerial
myopia and idiocy. Make sure your innovators, servers, and producers
are richly and consistently rewarded from top to bottom and
throughout the organization. Take steps to ensure that the number of
hours or volume of activity have no relationship to compensationonly
performance does. If your performance-based compensation system is
right, the more money your team earns, the more you should rejoice.
Encourage Winners
Probably no other company illustrates innovation in action better than
the Marriott Corporation. In an interview in Executive Excellence, Bill
Marriott, Jr., was asked, "Mr. Marriott, what have you learned about
how to treat people?" This was his answer:
Motivate them, train them, care about them and make winners out of them.
You have to treat people fairly, and you have to treat them as if they're
your most important assets, because they are. The competitive edge in this
business is people. I'm trying to communicate that I care and that the role
they play in the organization is an extremely vital one. I'm trying to drive
out fear. No manager can be fired unless he or she has been warned in
writing three times. In performance reviews we
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applaud strengths, pinpoint areas that need improvement and determine
what assistance is needed.1
Create a Climate for Mistakes
When Tough-Minded Management was published in 1963, one of its
most controversial topics was the idea of deliberately seeking the kind
of boldness and riskiness that would yield mistakes. I recommended
specifically that mistakes be encouraged in a calculated effort to
stimulate innovation and creativity. It is somewhat amusing now to
recall the furor this created.
With tongue in cheek, I often ask seminar audiences to finish this
sentence: "Anything worth doing is worth doing. . . ." Of course they
always answer "right" or "well." I then recommend that if they really
believe that is true, they should tell little children not to do it again
when they fall down or mispronounce a word. The hesitancy and
downright fear engendered by that familiar aphorism cause
incalculable losses in innovation, productivity, and happiness at all
ages and levels. We see its insidious impact on all the Ps in many
organizations.
People who take risks are the people you'll lose against.
JOHN SCULLEY, CEO, APPLE COMPUTERS
Build words like boldness, risk, energy, and calculated vulnerability
into the entire infrastructure of your organization.
Do you have the courage to fail your way to success?
Obtain Online Feedback From Major Customers
Do you want to go well beyond simply giving lip service to the
primacy of the customer? Then seriously explore the feasibility of
setting up an online computer network that permits your major
customers to transmit their wants, needs, problems, and possibilities
directly to a designated coordination center in your company. And
then listen, listen, listen to the people who buy. Rank Zerox Ltd. has
informed 130 of its European executives that salary increases will be
based exclusively on customer satisfaction, as measured by an
independent survey of client attitudes and an internal audit of repeat
sales. Few companies give the customer so loud a voice in
compensation decisionsbut they should!
1. "Ten Million Chances to Excel Each Day," April 1986. Used by
permission of J. W. Marriott, Jr.
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HOW TO SQUELCH INNOVATION
Innovation cannot flourish and endure in a driven, directive, tight,
screwed-down climate. Here are some negative ways to ensure that
you'll evolve into or remain a sterile, drifting, noninnovative
organization:
1.
Be defensive and cautious at all times.
2. Require documentation and proof of everything proposed. 3.
Require total compliance and conformance from your team.
4.
React to symptoms rather than seeking causes.
5.
Be preoccupied with weaknesses and apostrophe-t's.
6. Base compensation on seniority, activity, education, color, race,
and personal flattery.
7.
Look out for number oneyourselfat all times.
8.
Let people know what you're against.
9. Engage in negative listening. Hear them out and then say what
you were going to say anyway.
10.
Withhold praise at all times.
11. Make sure your people know you are a "knower" rather than a
"learner."
12. Encourage your people to compete with each other rather than
with their own self-generated goals.
13. Require rigid compliance with all forms of organizational
protocol.
14.
Go by the book.
Don't give in to these negatives. Seek instead to stimulate innovation
wherever possible.
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CHAPTER 11
NUTS AND BOLTS OF INNOVATION AND
PRODUCTIVITY
Whether called "task forces," "quality circles," "problem-solving groups" or
"shared-responsibility teams,'' such vehicles for greater participation at all
levels are an important part of an innovating company.
ROSABETH MOSS KANTER
THE CHANGE MASTERS
This chapter is designed to provide perspective and focus on the
crucial steps needed for American businesses to remain viable and
prosper in the turbulent decade ahead. Using a thorough and
comprehensive understanding of these vital steps and processes, we
move toward the understanding and application of a total productivity
systemthe positive G climatewhich takes the progressive organization
of the 1990s into, through, and beyond typical "quality circles" to the
more advanced "possibility teams."
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Figure 11.1. Tough-minded quality circles: Basic sequence and
procedure.
QUALITY CIRCLES FOR AMERICA
Quality circles are a viable tool if used properly. In fact, a number of
U.S. companies have long known and taught, in piecemeal fashion,
the techniques implicit in the typical approach to quality circles. We
simply haven't done a sufficient job of organizing, systematizing, and
implementing these techniques.
The tough-minded quality circle (Figure 11.1) is for the company
wanting to move beyond the typical quality-circle thinking of the past,
but not quite ready yet for the additional expective sophistications of
possibility teams. While this entire book is, in a very real sense, about
teams and team building, here I am discussing an approach that is
designed to yield much
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more than a fine team functioning within an organizational unit. In
this chapter I describe the specific steps and nomenclature for putting
together a synergistic system of multilevel, multidisciplinary,
multifaceted teams that are truly organizationally ecumenical. The
sole purpose of these teams is to change, improve, and challenge the
organization as a whole.
COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT QUALITY CIRCLES
1.
What is a tough-minded quality circle?
A group of seven to ten people who meet regularly for the
purpose of improving productivity, quality of performance, morale,
product, and profit.
2.
Who are members?
A quality circle is usually composed of people from similar
units and organizational levels. (Possibility teams, in contrast, are
made up of people who work at any and every appropriate level.)
3.
What is unique about a tough-minded quality circle?
Its emphasis on present and potential strengths. Weaknesses are
identified only to determine:
What additional strengths are needed
What is needed to further develop existing strengths
An expective vocabulary and approach are taught rather than
directive ones.
Unlike many circle programs, tough-minded quality circles
proceed beyond problem analysis, as shown in the sequence in
Figure 11.2.
4.
How do quality circles differ from other improvement
programs?
They provide much interpersonal discussion and interaction.
The program has its own governing board.
Presentations to management provide an excellent means for
members to fulfill their needs for:
Recognition
Security
Opportunity
Belonging
Facilitators and members are familiar with tough-minded,
expective dynamics.
Membership is voluntary.
Participants are paid for the time they spend in circle meetings.
5.
What results should be expected from quality circles?
Increased feelings of participation and identification with
company and unit goals.
Increased quality output from equipment, procedures, processes,
and people.
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Figure 11.2. Proposal process sequence.
Greater cooperation, safety, and pride.
Reduced turnover and absenteeism.
Reduction in scrap and waste.
Greater effectiveness of peer influence to meet stretching
standards.
Increased feelings of positiveness and demonstrated creativity.
The feeling on the part of team members that they are truly
treated as contributing resources, as valued people.
Reduced errors.
Insight into effective teamwork.
Greater feelings of involvement.
The formation of a preventive rather than crisis-coping attitude.
Fewer accidents.
Better internal communications.
Better relationships, greater openness and trust, between team
members and leaders.
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Increased personal and leadership qualities.
The confidence, morale, and motivation that builds when all
members of the work force, from top to bottom and side to side,
work in a climate of clear and mutually determined expectations.
A restless, healthy unsatisfaction with the status quo (remember,
dissatisfaction focuses on yesterday's failures; unsatisfaction
focuses on tomorrow's possibilities).
6.
How is the program organized?
The principal parts are:
Steering or guidance committee
Facilitator, program coordinator, or optimizer
7.
What is the steering or guidance committee?
The guidance committee is a group of people who develop clear
expectations and targets that provide purpose and direction for the
quality circle. Each member has one vote and major decisions are
reached by ballot or consensus.
8.
What are the facilitator's responsibilities?
Guidance, training, and counsel
Planning and coordination
Strengths deployment, facilitation, and focus
Agreed-upon research, measurement, and control
9.
Who functions as leader?
In the early stages, it is usually advantageous for the supervisor
of the organizational units to act as the leader.
After the circle concept is functioning well, members may decide
to elect a nonsupervisory person as leader.
10.
How does the circle operate?
The major elements of the process are:
Problem identification
Problem selection
Problem analysis
Recommendations to management
Recommendations to management are carefully and thoroughly
planned to reflect completed staff work, which will stress
possibilities for:
Increased productivity
Increased morale
Increased quality
Increased profit
Increased effectiveness and efficiency
Increased innovation and calibrated change
Presentation of recommendations to management may also be
attended by the members of the steering committee, the facilitator,
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and other managers and experts as appropriate. It is truly a highlight
of the entire program and should be planned and executed with great
care.
11.
What occurs at a circle meeting?
Identifying and agreeing on the specific objectives for the
meeting.
Further development, training, and insights of members.
Asking, listening, and hearing to determine wants, needs, and
possibilities
listen, listen, listen, to the people who do the work!
Agreement on sequence of actions to be taken.
Formulating actual action plans, timetables, and controls.
12.
When and where are meetings held?
This will vary widely. Some rules of thumb are:
An hour once a week, or whatever is agreed upon
During working hours, if practical and appropriate
In a facility where interruptions are minimal
13.
What training is needed?
The facilitator is trained by appropriate experts or consultants.
Leaders are trained by the facilitator with guidance from the
consultant.
Circle members will be trained by the leaders with help from the
facilitator and consultant as needed.
An organization productivity climate, which was shown schematically
in Figure 5.2, "A system of leadership by expectations," is a key
element to assure the success of quality circles.
KEYS TO SUCCESS WITH QUALITY CIRCLES
The mechanics of quality circles are basically simple but,
paradoxically, highly variable from one organization to another. In this
brief overview, I hope to provide some tested common denominators
that enhance innovation and productivity.
1. Participants should share a mutual understanding of the vision,
mission, and objectives of the organization as a whole and of their
organizational unit.
2.
They should be encouraged and stimulated to be:
a. Creative and innovative, with a wide variety of talents, styles,
interests, and aptitudes
b.
Willing to rock the boat
c.
Restless and unsatisfied
d.
Candid, vulnerable, and open
e.
Curious and questing
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f. Committed to identifying current and potential strengths in all
areas of the company
g. Committed to values, goals, and levels of excellence bigger
than self
3. Communication processes, both intergroup and intragroup,
should be characterized by expective and nondirective language rather
than arbitrary or directive language. Decision making should be
relatively decentralized. Enhancement of the dignity of the individual
must always be the highest priority.
4. Rewards for innovative contribution must be clearly perceived,
felt, and understood. All ambiguity must be eliminated so that the
relationship of productive performance to rewards is crystal clear.
5. Management must be willing to provide much more information
than is typically shared.
6. All participants should clearly perceive where their role and
contributions fit into and affect the overall scheme of operations.
7. Management's actions must pervasively illustrate asking,
listening, hearing.
8. Training and education must be recognized as an ongoing, nevercompleted process. Instructors and facilitators should be thoroughly
educated in holistic understanding, insights, and applications.
All these steps together illustrate the sequence and forging of an
"Expective Leadership System" (ELS). You have already seen one
overall schema of such a system, the cybernetic circle in Figure 5.1.
Such a system is, of course, flexible and should be adapted to the
needs of individual organizations.
MORE ANSWERS
Konosuke Matsushita, head of Matsushita Industries and an
acknowledged leader in the areas of Japanese productivity and
innovation, played a large role in the evolvement of quality circles. In
the early 1960s, when he asked me for permission to use my
cybernetic circle of quality, he was reacting to the circle and first tier
at the center of Figure 2.1, the cybernetic circle of becoming. Refer
back to the figure. The two additional tiers (actually the components
of possibility teams) were developed by my company in the years that
followed.
In the complete, fully functioning organization of the future, planned
skillful involvement is essential and lends itself to commitment when
executed with conviction. Regrettably, in most instances the potential
payload of this approach is missed because its cybernetic possibilities
are not sufficiently understood and practiced.
What, then, does the three-tiered amalgam in Figure 2.1 imply? In
order to explore and understand how and why we can truly define and
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move beyond quality circles, we need to understand something that
Japanese businesspeople already seem to knowthat is, that the art of
professional leadership is composed of two aggregates or components:
Mechanics + Dynamics = Complete Leadership
These components must not be considered as discrete, mutually
exclusive elements, but rather as key elements that cannot be divided.
Let's examine this total cybernetic system. Visualize the three
processes in the smallest tier as the overall organizational method of
operation to be desired: again, involvement must precede commitment
if it is to be executed with conviction. The product of such
involvement, commitment, and conviction is constantly applied to the
ever-improving, ongoing, updating, perpetuating use of the "P"
pyramid of the organization. A close parallel exists between the seven
Ps of this pyramid and the seven Ss in Richard T. Pascale and
Anthony G. Athos's book, The Art of Japanese Management.1 These
Ss refer to strategy, structure, systems, style, skills, staff, and shared
values.
Visualize further that this process is fueled and vitalized by the ten
elements on the next tier. This tier represents a mix of both mechanics
and human dynamics. For instance, consider the mechanics involved
in creating and installing administrative procedures to ensure that jobs
are evaluated, salary grades created, and salary ranges constructed on
the basis of performance. The actual employee performance, however,
is strongly conditioned by the dynamics of training and development
programs that teach, sharpen, and reinforce such values as caring,
listening, and examining and identifying strengths.
On the third tier, you perceive again the mechanicsgoals, action plans,
performance standards, and timetables. These are vitalbut not
necessarily uniqueto any well-led and well-managed organization.
The uniqueness begins to form, synergize, and move beyond quality
circles to a total cybernetic system when we integrate and blend the
dynamics (items 7 through 16 of the third tier) with the mechanics.
At the heart of this entire cybernetic process, we perceive the central,
pervasive need for education and counsel fed by a vision of potential
and possibilities.
MOVING TO THE NEXT LEVEL:
POSSIBILITY TEAMS
The quality, cadence, and tempo of our lives derive directly from the
quality of our expectations. The quality, cadence, and tempo of our
organizational innovation and productivity also derive directly from
the quality
1. (New York: Warner Books, 1982).
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of these expectations. The preliminary mechanics of possibility teams
are almost exactly like those of tough-minded quality circles. The
significant difference is the stress placed on moving beyond analysis
to synergy, and plugging in the full vitality of the tough-minded
expective leadership system.
The conceptual foundation for possibility teams is built on four key
premises.
1. Significancethe deepest and most consistent of human needs,
both on and off the job. The need to feel significant as a person is best
met when team members can understand and experience:
a. Clear and meaningful expectationsthe finest gift one person
can give another
b. A growing understanding of current and potential strengths
c. Involvement in formulating the commitments they are
expected to fulfill
2.
Quality of workand concomitant productivityis greatly enhanced
when significance, clear expectations, strengths enhancement, and
involvement are clearly and skillfully integrated into the company's
"P" pyramid.
3. The unending challenge is to search for, identify, stimulate, and
build on the strengths of all resources in the organization. This will
positively affect the quality of work life, and therefore innovation and
productivity, in the most direct way possible.
4. The logical deployment of strengths determines the answers to
familiar questions of span of control, unity of command, and logical
assignment. The fusion of strengths to achieve objectives is, in the
final analysis, what organization is all about. From this perspective,
the pragmatic questions become:
What is controlled?
What should function with unity?
What should be logically assigned (deployed)?
And in every ease the answer revolves around identified strengths.
Next, we see a conceptual schematic for creating possibility teams
(Figure 11.2). This figure is designed to illustrate the internal process
carried out in preparation for submitting the completed proposal to the
appropriate level of management.
In Figure 11.3, we see what can be a useful planning guide and
instrument for the possibility team. This can be particularly useful as
an aid in phase I of Figure 11.1. Figure 11.3 denotes optimum factors
in possibility
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Figure 11.3. Beyond the quality circle.
teams. After the possibility team has targeted an area in which to
actualize possibilities, an imaginative expansion and application of
Figure 11.3 can be useful.
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You will notice that these same ideas also underlie tough-minded
quality circles. These ideas, and the basic mechanics that embody
them, have been tested, authenticated, and proved, and they should be
retained. The key differences lie in the effective day-to-day
integration of the basic system of beliefs and values into the
organization's ''P" pyramid: policies, procedures, practices, programs,
purpose.
Common Questions About Possibility Teams
In answering these questions, I will try to highlight the crucial
differences between an excellent tough-minded quality circle and the
additional possibilities (no pun intended) inherent in a possibility
team.
1.
What is a possibility team?
A group of seven to ten people who meet at regular intervals for
the purpose of improving every dimension of service, innovation,
spirit, fused focus, and vision
and therefore productivity, quality
product, and profit.
2.
of performance, morale,
Who are members?
People who work at any and every appropriate level, who have a
common interest in, and commitment to, improvement.
3.
Who can be a member of the possibility team?
Any person on the payroll can join the team. As the program
grows into a complete system, it is desirable for a great number and
variety of people to be involved. Symbiotic synergism is the goal.
4. What is unique about tough-minded possibility teams?
As in tough-minded quality circles, the following criteria are used, but
since possibility teams are wider in scope, the criteria are also
broadened:
Strengths, current and potential, are emphasized.
Weaknesses are interpreted as only the absence of strengths.
Weaknesses are identified only to determine:
What is missing or lacking
What additional strengths are needed
What is needed to further develop existing strengths
Positive G force vocabulary and approach are taught and used,
rather than a directive or negative G force.
Functional analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and synergy of macro
as well as micro organizational units, are taught and applied in
depth. These four steps are shown in Figure 11.2.
5. What results do possibility teams produce?
Expect all the results shown for tough-minded quality circles, plus the
following:
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Greater empowerment and renewal of people
Greater enhancement of individuality
More pervasive organizational impact
Better leadership development
A more complete reversal of the G forces
Improved team spirit and teamwork
Increased return on investment (average ratio of six to one)
Improvement in interdepartmental communication and
cooperation
Constant focus on and guidance from the vision and mission of
the organization
The constant discovery of new possibilities fed and fueled by
the corporate dream
6. Specifically, in what ways do possibility teams go beyond quality
circles?
All recommendations are fueled by and keyed to the basic
philosophy of the organization.
There is a high degree of interpersonal discussion and
interaction.
The program has its own built-in leadership.
Whereas some team members feel that the term quality circle
sounds impersonal, coercive, and remote, the very nature of the
term possibility team is inspiring.
The presentations to management reflect a higher level of
completed staff work and provide an excellent means for members
to fulfill their needs for:
Recognition
Security
Opportunity
Belonging
All of which add to the most important of all: significance.
Facilitators and members have been thoroughly trained in
tough-minded expective dynamics.
Membership is voluntary.
Participants are paid for the time they spend in team meetings.
Possibilities for new and better ways are considered to be
implicit in every aspect and dimension of the organization.
This total systems approach to enhancing a positive G-force climate
with possibility teams creates virtually unlimited possibilities. It is
based totally on positives, on strengths, on the tested and crucial
principle that meaningful involvement stacks the deck in favor of
commitment carried out with conviction. This was the key toughminded paradigm grasped by Konosuke Matsushita.
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Suggested Implementation Timetable
1. For possibility teams to succeed, management support at the top
levels of the organization is crucial. Senior managers must make a
commitment to encourage and reinforce creative idea development
and implementation from employees at grass-roots levels of the
organization. If there is some question about adequate support, a
management climate survey is recommended.
2.
Make the decision to implement possibility teams.
3.
Appoint a guidance committee (if you decide to have one).
4. The trainer, or other appointed individual, learns the principles
for possibility teams and techniques for training others in the process.
5. Guidance committee members are trained in the possibility team
process.
6. Departments and other work units are asked to volunteer to be
part of the possibility team program.
7. Three work areas are selected for the initial phase of
implementation from among those volunteering.
8. Volunteers for team membership are solicited from each of the
three areas selected.
9. Seven to ten members, along with their immediate supervisor,
are chosen from each area.
10. The team members and their supervisor (who will be the team
leader) are trained by the trainer in the possibility team process.
11. Those three areas implement possibility teams, with the trainer
available to assist with any problems that may be encountered.
12.
Additional teams are trained and implemented on a schedule
that allows for smooth implementation and adequate trainer time.
13.
Assign a time interval for each key step.
Important Management Information for Possibility Teams
With possibility teams, your focus should be on the stretch, growth,
and development of team members. As the team members respond,
the company will benefit in many ways: increased employee
productivity and job satisfaction; reduced turnover rates and
absenteeism; improved cost effectiveness. It is critical, however, that
these results be viewed as bonuses only. As targeted goals, they will
not be attainable. Employee growth and development must be
emphasized.
Make a commitment to ongoing employee growth that extends far
beyond the initial possibility team's training. This commitment
includes sharing information about company operation, accounting
and manufacturing principles, public relations, insurance
considerations, marketing research, mission, dreams, and goals, so
that team members understand company
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operations. Advanced training modules are also important in
developing team skills.
Be certain that you actively listen to the ideas and recommendations
of team members by sincerely praising team accomplishments and
implementing at least half of the team recommendations. Be careful to
avoid controlling or even influencing possibility team topics; this
helps avoid the impression that possibility teams are a management
tool or trick. Provide adequate time during working hours for team
activities, and provide the information and resources the teams
request. Recognize that possibility teams will help their organization
attain new heights and success levelsand that they can expect the best!
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CHAPTER 12
BUILD AND MOTIVATE YOUR TEAM
To build a winning team, you must first of all develop a winning attitude.
LOU HOLTZ
HEAD FOOTBALL COACH, NOTRE DAME
Primary among the qualities that lift great leaders above second-raters
and also-rans is commitment to building a teama team with
transcendent focus, unity, loyalty, shared-strengths emphasis, and a
high level of committed energy. Much has been written and said in
recent years about team building, and many esoteric devices have
been proffered. I believe, though, that the first step in the teambuilding process is to determine the fundamental qualities, the
attitudes, that leaders for the year 2000 should have.
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ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING
Ten tough-minded attitudes characterize great leaders and team
builders. These qualities remain the same, no matter what area of
business, no matter what time period. They are:
1. Expect the Best. Believe that there are strengths, possibilities,
and latent richness in all situations, people, and events.
2.
Develop an Action Plan. Each week, target all key wants and
needs in advance, and list priorities Under each. Then make sure you
accomplish all needed actions before you undertake any wanted
actions. You'll get more done, and you'll also enjoy your wants more
when you do get to them.
3.
Share, care, and dare to be aware. Cultivate a curious and
zestful interest in the uniqueness of your team members. Askand
really listen. Focus on their strengths, to defuse, diffuse, and dissolve
their defenses. Help them feel good about you and your vision,
mission, and goals. Provide assurance and reassurance, affirmation
and reaffirmation, by what you think, say, and are.
4. Think through and write down your dream. If you don't have a
dream, how will you make a dream come true? Once you have
sculpted a dreama stretching and transcendent expectationit then
becomes possible to develop specific goals, objectives, action plans,
and timetables that are fueled and guided by that dream. You may find
it hard work, but the rewards are well worth it.
5.
Prospect for gold. The average "good" leader perceives "good"
potential in each team member. Excellent executives, the leadership
artists, constantly look for and expect to find new strengths in their
team members. In short, the great leaders incessantly seek to mine
new human riches, new possibilities. They help their team members
visualize possibilities, benefits, and applications that they would never
think of otherwise. Their every action enhances rather than diminishes
all with whom they have contact.
6.
Incessantly seek knowledge and growth. Master and polish your
knowledge of the features, benefits, and uniqueness of your product or
service. Visualize your customers and team members as walking
bundles of strengths and possibilities. Commit to better relationships
with these people by learning more about their strengths, dreams, and
motives.
7.
Provide unusual and unparalleled service. It is no coincidence
that the second of the three basic beliefs of IBM reads: "We want to
give the best customer service of any company in the world."
Champions out-serve all competitors.
8.
Believe in the magic of believing. Great leaders, those who are
real pros and artists, believe deeply and unceasingly that the hopedfor thing is
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fact. This conditions the mind, body, and spiritand the results. It
becomes fact! Thomas Watson, Jr., former CEO of IBM, says, "We
constantly acted as though we were much bigger, much more
sophisticated, much more successful than any balance sheet might
bear out." IBM truly illustrates "the magic of believing."1
9.
Radiate energy, joy, and upness. Continuously and incessantly
search for new strengths in you. Recognize that a weakness is only an
indication of a missing or insufficiently developed strength. Then
you'll find it much easier and more invigorating to look for and relate
to the strengths of your customers and your team. Develop your own
strengths notebook and write down every strength you can think of.
Then add one additional strength each week for a year. Many
successful executives continue this process year after year. It
stimulates amazing growth and change. It builds confidence, purpose,
and direction, and an ever-growing awareness of what fuels them.
10.
Harness the power of love. An out-glowing of care, service,
and commitment to the customer's desires is a common denominator
in the tool kit of the persuasive leadership artist. Love is the toughestminded emotion in the world and the finest mental and spiritual
nutrient you can possess for a total life of fulfillment and
actualization. It is truly the nutrient that grows winners.
PRACTICAL TIPS FOR TEAM BUILDERS
These techniques will help you forge a superb team by optimizing the
useful.
Delegate in terms of results expected.
Make sure you are doing the right thing before concentrating on
doing the thing right.
When developing performance standards, take the time to
guarantee the team member understands the what, where, when, who,
how, and why. Ask for feedback to ensure this.
Make sure that team members understand precisely how much
authority they have to accomplish agreed-upon standards or results
commitment.
If the job or assignment is not clearly understood, be sure you
realize that three fingers are pointing back at you every time you point
to a fault or dwell on a weakness.
Make sure the method of reporting back to you is clearly
understood.
1. A Business and Its Beliefs: The Ideas That Helped Build IBM (Ann
Arbor, Mich.: UMI).
Page 109
Let team membersand expect them tomake their own decisions
whenever feasible and practical.
When you promote a person, do not be overly influenced by
technical skills. Recognize that interpersonal or "people" skills are
what get resuits.
Recognize that every supervisor is a coach, a trainer, a leader, an
inspector, sometimes an inventor, and always an expector.
Remember that a fine example is worth ten thousand words.
Be sure your people know:
Rules and regulationssafety, conduct, etc.
Quotas, schedules, and shipping dates
Appropriate methods, procedures, and processes
Personnel policies and benefits
Make sure that deviations from agreed-upon expectations are dealt
with when they happen. Also that superior performance is recognized
immediately.
Problems of attendance, punctuality, and accidents should be dealt
with immediately, not deferred.
Try to ensure that all your people are growing in some way.
Control your emotions. Leaders who blow hot and cold keep
people feeling insecure and relatively unproductive.
Take care of the company, and it will take care of you.
Try to make sure your people would say of you: "I always know
what is expected, and you take the time to explain why."
Vary your reading and experiences so that you are constantly
becoming broader and more informed about other facets of your
company and the world around you.
Try to become known by your fellow leaders as an unusually
cooperative and supportive person.
Strive to always think before you act, then be decisive, follow
through, and expect commitment and results.
Be a concerned leader rather than a worried one.
Recognize that, with skill and effort, you can help increase your
people's hope in every performance appraisal and in all kinds of faceto-face situations.
Never overlook a valid opportunity to reinforce or build people in
the eyes of their peers.
Flexibility, Imagination, Resourcefulness, and Enthusiasm add up
to FIRE. Put some fire into yourself, your people, and your job.
Believe that all team members can be creativeand expect them to
be.
Learn to listen with both your mind and heart. Really hear what
people say.
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Shun defensiveness. Defensive people and actions only shrink and
go backward.
Make your schedules realistic. Develop deadlines only after you
have carefully considered all the potential problems in the people,
money, material, time, and space for which you are accountable.
Gossip and innuendo have no place in the top-notch department.
Make sure your example and expectations reflect this.
Strive constantly to become a skillful questioner. Learn to probe,
analyze, and examine before forming a conclusion.
Say nothing about people that you would not tell them personally.
Study report writing. Learn to present performance data with
clarity, brevity, and validity.
Organize yourself so that time becomes an asset, not a liability. For
instance, make weekly and daily lists of your most important musts
and wants, then do all your musts before starting on your wants.
Improve your speaking skills. Practice with a tape recorder and a
mirror until you like the way you sound. Work on pace, relaxation,
and warmth.
Know the difference between delegation and abdication.
Delegation means to assign, trust, instruct. If needed, provide for
orderly and mutually agreed-upon feedback with the full realization
that you are still accountable for seeing that team members understand
and fulfill their responsibility, authority, and accountability.
Abdication means to relinquish all control and followthrough, and
hope the assignment gets done somehow.
Stay healthy and fit. There is nothing more practical than to have
your body and mind functioning as well as circumstances permit. You
are able to think better, make better decisions, and lead better.
Expect to succeed. Expect excellence from yourself and your
colleagues.
Know the difference between the conversational styles of the
expective and directive leader. Expective leadership says:
Will you do . . . ?
What do you think . . . ?
Can you get this done by . . . ?
Directive leadership says:
I want you to . . .
Don't you think . . . ?
Can't you get this done by . . . ?
Get this done by . . .
Try to eliminate all apostrophe-t's from your vocabulary.
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Develop the habit of looking at a workload, procedure, program,
process, or unit of people that need improvement and following this
sequence:
Eliminate, Combine, Rearrange, Simplify
or
Analyze, Evaluate, Synthesize, Synergize
Organize meetings this way:
Carefully prepare your agenda.
Encourage the ideas and critiques of all. Draw them out. Ask,
listen, and really hear.
Make sure all members know the objective of the meeting.
Request feedback to ensure understanding.
Conclude the meeting with a summation of the
accomplishments and courses of action agreed upon.
Thank the group members for their participation and
cooperation.
Visualize yourself as a leader, not a pusher. Leaders request and
expect. Pushers order, demand, and push. Leaders know what they are
for. Pushers know what they are against. Leaders are emotionally
vulnerable. Pushers are defensive.
Skill and firmness in asking will virtually always accomplish more
than ordering.
Condition all working relationships and decisions with the belief
that people should not be evaluated on the basis of color, creed, sex,
seniority, or religion. Rather, they should always be evaluated in terms
of accomplishment and performance.
Carefully study all descriptive traits in the next chapter,
"Leadership in the Twenty-First Century."
To cope with unsatisfactory team members:
Avoid hiring a potential problem. Screen very carefully.
Stay in close touch with your team so that potential problems
can be discovered early and dealt with.
Make sure they know precisely what the job expectations are.
Make sure they have all the materials, tools, and coaching they
might need.
Make sure your example is what it should be.
Be candid, be specific, build on strengths, listen, and hear.
Assume the team member is right until proven wrong.
Get to know team members as well as you can. Attempt to help
them see and feel a relationship between the priorities and
expectations.
Do not terminate employment without having carried out the
above steps and making very sure they have understood exactly
what the situation is.
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Remember that discipline is defined as ''training that builds and
strengthens." When the leader applies this approach with diligence,
integrity, and warmth, the number of unsatisfactory team members
decreases significantly.
It is rare to find a case of absenteeism if team members are well
coached, are in the right job, know what is expected, and are
empowered and truly led.
The first hour of the first day on a new job exerts a profound
influence on the team member. Make sure the team member:
Feels expected and wanted.
Is encouraged to ask questions and is given thoughtful and
thoroug hanswers.
Feels part of a careful, thought-out orientation procedure.
Is helped to thoroughly understand the new job.
Ideally, learns of the uniqueness of the company and is helped to
feel truly a part of it.
Make sure the team is enlightened, empowered, energized, and
enthusiastic.
THE TEAM CONCEPT
The excellent team has tempo, which I defined earlier as "the speed
with which an organization identifies problems and opportunities and
makes and implements decisions." But a real team has much, much
more:
A trust relationship among members of the team
An attitude that is flexible, durable, open, growing, questing,
vulnerable, and expective
Clear, properly developed goals, objectives, and expectations
A focus on strengths, the only tools an organization or an
individual has
A readiness to take on new and different challenges, problems, and
opportunities
Caring: the capacity, the desire to relate to people
Accountability: feeling truly answerable for one's actions as a
leader and team member
Significance: uniqueness; realness
Symbiosis: positive interaction conducive to synergy
Synergy: the capacity to compound resources for positive results
Candor, applied integrity
Communication: shared meaning, shared understanding
Page 113
Figure 12.1. The GROWTH path.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MOTIVATION
We must get rid of the old idea that a leader can give motivation. All
motivation is self-motivation. We simply cannot, and should not want
to, install motivation externally. The excellent leader goes all out to
provide the climate, the stimuli, and the example, but all real
motivation is self-generated.
Only growing, actualized individuals can reach out beyond
themselves in ways essential to true synergistic teams. No aggregate
productivity can ever be more than mediocre unless the individuals in
the group are experiencing purpose, direction, and fulfilled
expectations.
An essential truth for leaders and team builders to grasp is this: We
can know and lead others only when we are progressively learning
how to know and lead ourselves. Self-discovery is a frequently
neglected but crucial step. Remember, all growth is self-growth. Grow
the example you want your team members to follow. As you chart
your way through the rest of this chapter, on your personal quest, you
may find it useful to study Figure 12.1, the growth path.
A JOURNEY OF SELF-DISCOVERY
To help you learn more about yourself and your motivation, I have
prepared a set of ten questions, each broken down into a number of
Page 114
subquestions. The answers to each of the subquestions will enable you
to answer the prime question. The questions correspond to the
sequence shown in Figure 12.2, the cybernetic circle of motivation.
Your answers to these questions will be personal and unique. There
can be no right or wrong answers. The purpose is to help you apply
some practical ideas about motivation to your own situation. There is
no set sequence or pattern to follow to become motivated. But certain
elements are necessary. You can take these elements and mix them in
any proportion or sequence you wish, and still achieve a high degree
of motivation. Therefore, you do not have to complete the exercises in
any particular order. If a certain section especially appeals to you, start
there.
Take your time and carefully think out the answers to each question.
The more you think about each question and really discover your
thoughts and feelings, the more motivated you are likely to become.
Do not feel compelled to complete this in one session. Work a section
or two a day. There are ten sections, so if you do one a day it will take
ten days. At the rate of two sections a day, you will finish in five days.
Remember, you must know yourself, and like yourself, before you can
know and like others. And you must be able to lead yourself before
you can lead others. I urge you to actually complete every question.
The rewards can be enormous. Only through self-discovery can we
progress on to self-fulfillment, self-actualization, and co-actualization.
The person who follows such a growth path tremendously increases in
ability to lead and to evoke the best from others. To do less is to fail to
confront your possibilities.
We'll start with a list of some strengths to help start you thinking
about your own. Of course, this is not an all-inclusive list. You will
undoubtedly be able to think of other strengths unique to you once
you start completing the sections.
Visionary
Affectionate
Hard-working
Happy
Forgiving
Disciplined
Energetic
Fit
Committed
Tolerant
Cheerful
Serene
Sincere
Focused
Emotional stamina
Humble
Thoughtful
Compassionate
Attractive
Diligent
Tenacious
Sense of humor
Helpful
Outgoing
Resilient
Intelligent
Emotionally stable
Self-starting
Page 115
Figure 12.2. The cybernetic circle of motivation.
A Personal Pledge for the Tough-Minded Leader
1. I must learn more of my own strengths and learn to like, yes, and
to love myself.
2.
I must care enough about myself and others.
3.
I must listen actively. Discover wants, needs, and problems.
4.
I must care enough about others to look for and find thrie
strengths.
5.
I will provide positive reinforcement and build on strengths.
6. I will obtain involvement and input. Jointly agree on
commitments.
7. I will lead with an example that I will be proud to have others
follow.
8. I will ensure that rewards are provided in direct proportion to
performance and that appropriate disciplinary steps are taken if
commitments are not (under logical circumstances) met.
9. I will continue to stretch and discover who and what I really can
be.
10. I will expect the best. Dom't expect perfection. Do expect
excellence!
Question 1. Who am l?
1. Five of my inner strengths are:
______________________________________________________________
2. I can improve these strengths by:
___________________________________________________________
3. I would like to add these strengths:
__________________________________________________________
Why?
_______________________________________________________________
4. What five needs do I most want to fulfill? [List in order of importance.
_____________________________
_______________________________________________________________
5. Write a short paragraph describing: This is the person I think I am.
__________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
6. Look back to the answers you gave to items 1-4; then item 5. Do you find in ite
listed in items 1-4?
_______________________________________________________________
If not, why?
_______________________________________________________________
7. How do I feel about myself when I'm happy and when I'm sad?
____________________________________
Why?
_______________________________________________________________
[Note: Before answering the next three questions, please be aware that the tem lov
love. to love yourself is not egotistical or conceited. It essentially means being abl
love. to love yourself is not egotistical or conceited. It essentially means being abl
yourself as you are, being aware of your potential, as well as your limitations. I m
suppleness, and constancy of purpose.]
8. Do I love myself?
_______________________________________________________________
Why?
_______________________________________________________________
9. How do I feel about answering item 8?
_______________________________________________________
Why?
_______________________________________________________________
10.Why do I feel it might be important to love myself?
______________________________________________
Question 2. Why should I care?
1. Should I be a caring person?________________________________________
Why?
_______________________________________________________________
2. If I had to sacrifice something I felt was extremely imporatnt for the happiness
would I?
___ Parents
___Children
___ Spouse
___Other relatives
___ Friends
___Business associates
___Acquaintances
___ Strangers
3. Why would I be willing to sacrifice or open myself to some of them and not ot
_______________________________________________________________
4. What would I be willing to do for someone I really cared about? [List several t
___________________
_______________________________________________________________
5. What would I not be willing to do?
__________________________________________________________
6. Below is a list of traits. Which ones are found in a caring person?
______________________________________
Love
Openness and expectations
Sharing
Sincerity
Vulnerability Helpfulness
Self-sacrificing Humility
7. How many traits did I check?
______________________________________________________________
Which ones didn't I check?
_______________________________________________________________
Why not?
_______________________________________________________________
8. [Take another look at the traits in item 6. All these traits are needed if a person
you're not able to feel all these traits operating with everyone.] I have looked b
and I can see all these traits in
_______________________________________________________________
9. How can I show my team members that I am a caring person? [List five ways.
_______________________
_______________________________________________________________
10.I have chosenn one team member and one of the items I listed in item 9 just ab
___________ and the method is ____________. for one week I tried to show t
that method. These were the results:
_______________________________________________________________
Question 3. I listen, but . . .
Why do I feel it is important to really listen and hear what people say?
________________________________
Here are five things that make it difficult for me to listen.
__________________________________________
Really hearing and understanding what a person says involves more than listen
things are also involved.
_______________________________________________________________
Are there some people I don't listen to? [ Name two and tell why.]
__________________________________
5. When I listen to someone, what should I be looking for?
__________________________________________
6. What can I do to help myself become a better listener? [ List three things.
___________________________
7. Feedback is one tool I can use to help me become a better listener. It involves t
to the speaker the essence of what was said. Here is a recent incident or conver
feedback, or could have:
_______________________________________________________________
8. Do I settle for "dialogue" (two or more people engaged in monologues,) or go
meaning, shared understanding)?
____________________________________________________________
Question 4. How can finding and reinforcing other people's strengths help me?
1.Do I find it easy to see strengths in other people?
_______________________________________________
Why?
________________________________________________________________
2.I have chosen a team member (a co-worker or someone I lead). Here are five of
strengths [use skills or personality traits ]:
______________________________________________________________
3.Here are five of that person's unique talents or abilities (things he or she can do
________________
4.Did I have difficulty completing items 2 and 3?
_________________________________________________
If so, I might consider getting to know that person better. How might I do this?
_________________________
5.I will try following questions 2, 3, and 4 for other people at work and at home. H
people and their strengths
.________________________________________________________________
After a month, I will take another look at how I view them.
Question 5. Why do I need to reinforce those strengths?
1.How do I feel about giving people earned praise?
_______________________________________________
2.How do people react to my praise and compliments?
____________________________________________
3.I tried complimenting the person I initially picked in question 4 above.
This is the response I received:
_____________________________________________________________
4.I then tried complimenting the second group of people I listed in question 4 abo
work and at home. Which of their strengths did I compliment?
work and at home. Which of their strengths did I compliment?
_______________________________________________
How did they respond?
________________________________________________________________
After a month, how do I feel about these same people?
___________________________________________
(You may note some changes in their attitudes, and yours, that will surprise you
________________________
5.[Take another look at your list of people you selected for compliments and posit
Consider the following and find examples of each ]:
a. How does caring about others help me?
____________________________________________________
b. How does listening help me?
_____________________________________________________________
c. How do finding and reinforcing others' strengths help me?
_______________________________________
Question 6. Why get involved?
[ Note: Involved means sharing, caring, relating, being vulnerable, asking, listen
suggesting.]
1.[ Think about the last cause or project you were associated with and answer the
]: Why did I get involved? [ List the reasons .]
_________________________________________________
2.Could I be called an "involved" person?
______________________________________________________
Why or why not?
________________________________________________________________
3.This is how I would describe someone I know who is an "involved"
person.____________________________
4.Would I like to be more like the person I described?
_____________________________________________
Why?
________________________________________________________________
5.[Imagine you are given responsibility for a major project at work. Consider this
go about getting my other project members involved? [List the steps. Be sure to
item 1.]
6.Could I use positive reinforcement to obtain someone's involvement?
_________________________________
What kinds of reinforcement could I use?
_____________________________________________________
7.Does my company give performance appraisals to let people know how they are
__________________
If so, how could these performance appraisals involve positive reinforcement? [
___________
________________________________________________________________
8.How could my team members as well as management personnel be involved in
______
________________________________________________________________
9.How could the following serve as an aid to positive reinforcement and involvem
a. Compensation_________________________________________________
b. Incentives (a bonus plan, for instance)
___________________________________________________
c. Company newsletter. ___________________________________________
d. Promotion ___________________________________________________
e. Other (something unique to your organization)
_____________________________________________
Question 7. Me? Lead by example?
1.Every day someone is influenced to follow my example, good or bad.
Today, in this particular situation someone followed my lead. [Describe the inci
____________________
2.Do I really want to be a leader?
____________________________________________________________
Why?
________________________________________________________________
3.What kind of example do I set for those around me? [ List some of your traits th
they admired or disliked.]
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
4.Am I happy with the way people see me?
_____________________________________________________
5.If I could add or delete only one thing from the traits listed in item 3, what woul
___________________
6.Why did I choose this one particular trait?
_____________________________________________________
7.I am imagining that I have only one week to live. I'm thinking of one person wh
leadership, and these are the things I would like this person to remember about m
__________________________________
8.I think I would like to make some changes in my leadership image, and I'll start
in the preceding question. For one week, I'll make a conscious effort to be the pe
end o ] the week, refer to your list again; for each point, note whether you feel y
____________________________
Question 8. Are rewards necessary?
1.Are rewards and positive reinforcement the same?
______________________________________________
2.I think a valid reward for the following might be:
a. Meeting a stretching expectation
_______________________________________________________
b. Earning a promotion____________________________________________
c. Excessive absence from work____________________________________
d. Stealing. _____________________________________________________
3.What happens when a person is not rewarded promptly for either good or poor
performance_______________
________________________________________________________________
4.These five rewards are most meaningful to me:
_________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
5.What do I feel a team member's compensation should be based upon?
_______________________________
________________________________________________________________
6.Do people in my organization know why they do or don't receive a raise?
_____________________________
Why should they know?
________________________________________________________________
7.How can I help ensure that my team members receive valid rewards for their wo
_____________________
________________________________________________________________
Question 9. Why do I need stretch?
1.Would I be satisfied to remain exactly as I am today for the rest of my life?
____________________________
________________________________________________________________
2.What does the word growth mean to me?
_____________________________________________________
3.Is continuous personal growth necessary?
_____________________________________________________
Why?
________________________________________________________________
4.Here are five ways in which I feel I have grown or stretched in the past year.
___________________________
________________________________________________________________
5.How can personal goals or future plans help me grow?
___________________________________________
6.Here are some of the adjectives I would use to describe what a goal should be:
_________________________
7.There are two types of goals: short-term and long-range. Here is an example of
____________________
________________________________________________________________
8.I would like to achieve these three goals in the next year.
__________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
9.I would like to have achieved these three goals in the next five years:
________________________________________________________________
10.I choose to concentrate on this one short-term goal.
_____________________________________________
These are the things I must do to accomplish it, and the time limit I set for each
_____________________
_______________________________________________________________
11.At the end of a year, I accomplished these short-term goals:
_______________________________________
[If you didn't reach any of those listed, list the reasons.]
________________________________________
12.Now I will set these new
goals:__________________________________________________________
13. Have I helped my people set goals for their work?
_____________________________________________
Why might doing so help me?
_____________________________________________________________
14.Do I feel my organization should help its employees with career planning?
_____________________________
Why?
_______________________________________________________________
15.How would I go about helping one of my team members who has come to me
career planning and personal growth?
_____________________________________________________________
Question 10. The best I can be . . .
1. What does excellence mean to me?
_________________________________________________________
2. How do I know I am doing my best?
_________________________________________________________
3. Why is it important to do my best?
__________________________________________________________
4. What happens when someone expects me to do my best?
_________________________________________
5. What happens when I expect others to do their best?
____________________________________________
6. What happens when someone expects my worst or second best?
___________________________________
7. What positive G forces stimulate me the most?
_________________________________________________
The key to greater personal motivation lies within you. It cannot be handed to you
There are some steps you can learn that will give you the rewards you desire, and
have been designed to help you master them. All ten steps are important.
Continue to provide room for stretch in your life and in the lives of those around y
to discover new and exciting things about who you are and can be. This will make
reach out and help others discover possibilities that will enable them to grow also.
tributes you can give another person: the ability to see who the person is and who
Page 122
CHAPTER 13
LEADERSHIP IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
How can we preserve our aspirations and at the same time develop the
toughness of mind and spirit to face the fact that there are no easy victories?
One is a tough-minded recognition that the fight for a better world is a long
one.
JOHN GARDNER
NO EASY VICTORIES
From right and left we hear cries of gloom and doom about the future
of American corporations. Quick-fix artists and one-minute solutions
abound. Attempts to understand and emulate the ''productive genius"
of
*The above excerpt from No Easy Victories is copyright © 1969 by John
W. Gardner. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
Page 123
the Japanese proliferate like rabbits. Theories X, Y, and Z ebb and
flow. Often the picture seems to show many famous corporations as
stumbling giants. At a premium are leaders with vision, courage,
integrity, tenacity, energy, and insight into the exciting and
revolutionary possibilities of the future. One of the greatest needs for
today's leaders is the need to anticipate change and prepare for the
future rather than fight it.
Management leaders in generations to come will not be people who
have merely mastered a discipline or achieved a graduate degree or
two. They will not be financiers, supersalespersons, or experts at
analysis. They will be people who are able to inspire others, who can
weld together many individuals of wide and diverse experiences and
abilities into cohesive groups with singleness of purpose.
INTEGRITY THAT PERVADES AND SUFFUSES
The quality of our minds will only be as good as the quality or
integrity of our beliefs and values. Indeed, the total value of all we
accomplish is the sum of the values between our ears.
Are we laying our ethics and dignity aside too often, in the seemingly
never-ending rush for greater pleasure, more spare time, and more
money? Are businesspeople helping the country's integrity slip
backward into lethargy? Without the positive guidelines and
governors that are imposed by personal integrity, could we find
ourselves in an atmosphere of self-centered greed? Have we been
knocked off base by the greed inherent in large-scale scandals (for
example, the Wall Street insider trading crimes of 1987)?
Is there, in fact, any real integrity in any business transaction that is
not accompanied or followed up by excellent service? Greed and
excellence of service simply do not mesh. The tough-minded leader
takes steps to ensure that the organization is guided by crystal-clear
ethics criteria in all areas and at all levels. These are my suggestions:
1. I will live by the premise that to perpetuate my business and to
be a good executive, I must make the best-quality product possible at
minimum cost, market it competitively, and achieve the optimum
legitimate profit in return.
2. I will recognize that my greatest resources in business are my
team members and my friends.
3. I will refuse to take advantage of a situation that will reflect
adversely on the reputation of my company.
4. I will refuse to take any advantage of a business, opportunity if it
may entail a violation of the morals, ethics, and laws of justice that I
personally believe to be the foundation of our society.
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5. I will endeavor always to look for the positive, constructive, and
developmental answers to problems concerning my team members. I
will demonstrate confidence in times of crisis.
6. I will refuse to stretch honesty to the last letter of the law; my
intention is more important than the act.
7. I will practicewithin the limits of wisdomconstructive candor,
warm understanding, and helpful assistance to all who ask it.
8. I will confront my problems honestly and squarely, talking them
out and solving them to the best of my knowledge and ability. I will
ask, listen, and hear.
9. I will recognize that both competition and cooperation built our
country and that I must help to perpetuate these desirable attributes of
our society for the future.
10. I will believe that the Ten Commandments are the supreme
laws that should guide and inspire me.
Tough-minded leaders view all this in perspective. They know that the
ultimate price must somehow be paid. They know that phonies finish
last! Unless a person builds a life on a value system rooted in daring,
caring, and sharing, he or she will early drift away into a phony,
meaningless existence.
Real men and women who want to lead real and renewing lives will
be guided by these principles:
Serve much.
Care much.
Dare much.
Share much.
Stretch much.
Expect much.
Give much.
Live much.
Love much.
Grow much.
Empower and renew much.
Experiment much.
Seek challenges and obstacles.
Have a sense of wonder.
Have a specific program of physical, mental, and spiritual fitness.
Make the quantum leap from judging others on the basis of their
weaknesses to evaluating them according to their current and potential
strengths.
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Truth and ethics can be enormously powerful when they are
effectively focused and practiced. Some helpful thoughts for the
positive G force leader include:
Dwell on what a person can do, and should do, rather than on how
badly they have done or may do.
Sporadic or unplanned abrasiveness can be cruel.
Scrupulously avoid the temptation to develop whipping boys or
scapegoats. Make sure candor and openness are rewarded.
Recognize that you gain confidence and courage every time you
meet head on a situation that you were previously afraid of.
Be sincere. Remember that real warmth and graciousness can't be
cultivated as long as you are concerned primarily with yourself.
Give earned compliments freely. Learn to relish this privilege.
Don't blame anyone else for what you are not, but be grateful to
those who have helped you become what you are.
Try to prove yourself only through positive action. If you have
been trying to impress people by downsizing others, quit it!
Have the courage to change what can be changed, the serenity to
accept that which can't, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Be compassionate.
How can the leader achieve personal tooling for integrity? Find the
effective, self-disciplined practitioner and you will likely find a person
who:
Meets commitments and gives loyalty
Follows a realistic schedule
Is physically, mentally, and spiritually fit
Understands and feels good about self
Is a strong individual ( integrity and strength mean the same)
Operates by results, not activity
Scrupulously insists on the truth
Conducts a periodic self-inventory and maximizes own strengths
Knows true creativity is impossible without hard work and
followthrough
Develops pace, tempo, and stamina
Can identify and eliminate trivia
Has happy domestic relations
Usually achieves empathy
Shuns political infighting
Fosters, exemplifies, and builds communicative networking
Does not tolerate continued flabby methods in others
Confronts difficulties squarely
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Gets to the heart of the problems and talks them out
Is totally intolerant of lack of integrity
Integrity is not just a nice word. It is the essence, the sum and
substance of all that is worthwhile.
BECOME A BIG PERSON
The leaders of today and tomorrow must be big people. By this I am
not referring to physical height. Rather, I mean leaders whose goals,
vision, dreams, commitment, and dedication loom large. In "What
Works Jot Me": Sixteen CEOs Talk About Their Careers and
Commitments, Thomas R. Horton quotes Richard A. Zimmerman,
chairman and CEO of Hershey Foods:
Among the CEOs I know, the most successful ones have a very positive
outlook. Every CEO has to be a cheerleader. At times you may feel that
you can list a series of disaster scenarios for your company, and certainly
you are in the best position to do that; still, you have to be a cheerleader at
least part of the time. . . . OK, we know it is going to be tough, but let's get
at it! You need always to be encouraging and perhaps that is one of the
most admired attributes that I see in most CEOs.1
And elsewhere,
It is important to always have that vision of where you want to go. And
most good CEOs always have that vision. 2
Marisa Bellisario, CEO of Italtel Societá Italiana
Telecommunicazioni, believes:
Always in some way I tend to take on more. . . . Whenever I have taken a
job, I never thought I couldn't make it.3
Tough-minded leaders feel, demonstrate, and express supreme selfconfidence! They are comfortable with the sharing of power,
authority, and beliefs.
Portia Isaacson, CEO of Intellisys, says:
1.
2.
3.
(New York: Random House, 1986).
Ibid.
Ibid.
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I am sure that to many people the act of my starting up Intellisys is equally
bizarre. . . . I could fail really visibly, but I guess I don't care. I don't think
about that at all. It simply does not occur to me that we could fail.4
Tough-minded executives should be hungry for a deep understanding
of "positive thinking." It is much more than a catch-phrase. Leaders
must consider the specific implications it has for the leader of the
future. Robert H. Waterman, Jr. says:
An attitude some call FUDfear, uncertainty, and doubtis the nemesis of the
tough-minded optimism that sustains renewal.5
Waterman also says:
IBM's no-layoff, full-employment policy, like the company itself, is toughminded optimism in action. It is based on respect for the individual, a tenet
deeply imbedded in the company's culture and central to all management
decision making.6
As the massive, pivotal shift from the G forces of the past to the G
forces of the future unfolds, the greatest premium will always be you
the leaders. All growth is self-growth. All positive G teams are led to
self-man-agement. What you are can thunder so loud, they'll want to
hear what you say!
Warren Bennis believes that:
First, true leaders lead fully integrated lives, in which their careers and
their personal lives fit seamlessly and harmoniously together.7
LEAD AND MANAGE CHANGE
Tough-minded leaders know that changes in business and the world in
general are inevitable, and they relish them! They anticipate the
unfolding of the future, plan for it, and set trends. They require and
encourage a climate conducive to innovation in all facets of the
business. Above all, they are change agents. They recognize that a
positive G-force culture depends on certain pivotal changes:
4. Ibid.
5. Robert H. Waterman, Jr., The Renewal Factor: How the Best Get and Keep
the Competitive Edge (New York: Bantam, 1987).
6. Ibid.
7. Bennis and Burt Nanus, Leaders (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers,
Inc., 1985).
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1.
Relate compensation to performance. Tough-minded leaders
believe that providing rewards for seniority, long hours, racial or
ethnic background, formal education, and old-school ties denies the
dignity and worth of the individual. They care too much for people
not to expect their best and pay them for results.
2.
Generate enthusiasm. These leaders retain and expand their
sense of wonder. They let their love of life, their acquired exuberance
show. They believe it is crucial to "get things done and have a lot of
fun" and know the two things are indivisible. They share life, love,
and laughter with their team.
3.
Be not deterred by small people. Leaders are not deterred by
small and petty thinkers. They know what they want and what the
organization needs. They secure maximum involvement and
participation from their team, and move ahead resolutely toward the
actual practice of management by integrity and empowerment.
4.
Build on strengths. While tough-minded leaders recognize that
they, like all people, have weaknesses, their primary concern is
strengths. They know it is strengths, not weaknesses, that will make
their organizations thrive.
5.
Remember that expectations are everything. Leaders stretch
their people, but never expect more from any person than that person
is capable of performing. They often expect more than the people
themselves believe they can accomplish. This is their key for
developing confidence in individuals and helping them obtain a
maximum feeling of accomplishment and empowerment. They know
that expectations are the key to all happenings.
6.
Remain goal oriented. Since a straight line is the shortest
distance between two points, leaders know they must have some
future point clearly in mind or they will dissipate their efforts.
7.
Practice leadership. Real leaders lead as they would like to be
led. Their style is passionate rather than passive. They walk in front of
the flock. Like a compass, they provide direction, guidance, and
magnetic pull.
8.
Foster significance. Leaders know people can truly live and
grow only if they feel real, if they can experience faith, hope, love,
and gratitude. The two greatest contributions to feelings of
significance are clear, stretching expectations, and growing awareness
of strengths.
9.
Believe in intuition. Tough-minded leaders relish the freedom to
be subjective while they seek out all the objective information that
can help them make correct and profitable decisions. They know that
courage and logic are key components of intuition, and that intuition
is really the ability to make spontaneous decisions, to take risks, to
gamble on calculated vulnerability.
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Every man knows that in his work he does his best and accomplishes most
when he has attained a proficiency that enables him to work intuitively.
That is, there are things which we come to know so well (the product of
study and discipline, ergo, logic) that we do not know how we know them.
Perhaps we live best and do things best when we are not too conscious of
how and why we do them.
ALBEBT EINSTEIN
VALUES MANIFESTO FOR TOUGH-MINDED LEADERS
These are some things that real leaders believe in and practice every
day of their lives.
1. Openness and emotional vulnerability. Leaders let other people
in and let themselves out. They believe that the absence of
defensiveness is an indication of strength and management maturity.
An undue concern for safety and comfort reverses growth and creates
apathy.
2. Warmth. Leaders reach out to people; they do not simply sit back
and wait. They demonstrate caring and concern. Their voices and
manners project relaxation and positive concern.
3. Consistency. Leaders meet commitments, keep their word, and
can be relied upon. They expect the same from others.
4. Unity. Leaders have a fused and focused oneness of purpose,
effort, and direction.
5. Caring. Leaders want others to grow and benefit. They believe
love is the toughest-minded emotion in the world.
6. Positive listening. Leaders are positive listeners. They keep an
open and flexible mind. Since they encourage creativity within their
organization, they listen positively to ideas that are presented, trying
to discover ways that will work. Above all, they hear.
7. Unsatisfaction. Leaders are hungry for improvement, growth,
and a better way. They have a fanatical commitment to constantly
stretching and reaching for the best.
8. Flexibility. Leaders abhor rigidity in all forms. They know
hardness and weakness are usually synonymous. Their minds are
resilient and supple.
9. Giving. Leaders believe that the more people put intoor giveto
life and their work, the more they receive. Also, giving yields more
real pleasure. They relish giving earned praise! They know that gogetters ultimately get got.
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10. Involvement. Leaders seek the involvement of their people in
developing their goals and plans, not only because they want to use all
the talents within their organization, but also because they know that
people will be more committed to meeting these objectives if they
have a part in determining them.
11. Tolerance of mistakes. Leaders have the courage to let people
make mistakes. They even encourage it! They recognize that people
learn by doing and so if they do anything they are going to make
mistakes. By recognizing this, they also delegate better.
12. Values. Leaders realize values should be precision instruments
that inspire, unify, and stretch. They believe that leaders who are
value driven are not leaders at all; they are pushers. True leaders are
value led.
13. Psychological wages. Leaders provide for a psychic as well as a
real wage for their people because they recognize psychological as
well as physical needs. Their focus is always on the whole person.
14. Simplicity. Leaders constantly strive to make the complex
simple. They know settling for a complex solution is settling for
second best. They have the ability to deal with complexity, ambiguity,
and uncertainty. They prefer the simple and tough to the complex and
easy.
15. Time. Leaders guard their time preciously and allot it to key
areas where it will produce the greatest impact. Since there are so
many stretching goals to achieve, they concentrate their time and
energy on doing one thing at a time and doing first things first. They
set priorities and stick to them even if it means secondary things do
not get done at all.
16. The winning formula. Integrity plus quality plus service says it
all. Leaders create customer satisfaction through quality, productivity,
people, and ideas.
17. An open mind. An open mind can grow. A closed mind dies.
Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.
18. Development of people. Leaders believe and live the concept
that the development of people, as a whole and in depth, pays real
dividends to both the business and the individual. They know this is
the alpha and omega of the great organization of the future.
19. Self-discipline. Leaders practice self-discipline in every
dimension of their lives.
20. Physical fitness. Leaders recognize that developing maximum
physical fitness is an important requisite of mental health and acuity.
Such fitness is not self-indulgence but part of an executive's
obligation to business, team members, and family.
21. Enjoyment of life. Leaders enjoy lifeand people know it! Dour,
scowling, formidable executives only succeed in compressing,
repressing, and depressing their team members.
22. Broad perspective. Leaders' interests and activities may range
glob-
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ally. Truly broad-gauge leaders read widely and have their own
personal-development program. They believe that a broad and eclectic
fund of knowledge makes for not only a better generalist, but also a
better specialist. They see the broad picture, look beyond their own
specialty or function to think in terms of the customerthe ultimate
reason for their jobs.
23. Faith in sell and others. Leaders believe we are the sum of our
strengths and that the only real things to search for and believe in are
the strengths of ourselves and others. They assume there is positive
evidence of strengths that are still unseen.
24. Vision. Vision provides the basic energy, lift, and stretch for
pulling the organization toward the future. Positive people will
intuitively respond to a leader's positive dreams.
25. Positive thinking. Leaders believe negativism is never justified.
They know that there are plus and minus elements in many situations
but that the minus areas can be made into pluses.
26. Desire to learn. Leaders cultivate a curiosity for new
dimensions of knowledge and resist efforts to predicate plans on past
and present knowledge only. They do not confuse wit or intelligence
with wisdom, and they strive steadily for greater wisdom. They are
life-long learners. They cultivate a perpetual sense of wonder.
27. Enjoyment of work. Leaders know that life without work is a
shortcut to deterioration, that hard positive work is one of life's great
renewing agents. They relish feelings of accomplishment. They are
literally hungry for new obstacles, difficulties, and strength-building
confrontations.
28. Enrichment of others. Leaders are proud of the free enterprise
way of life and seek to enrich the lives of others by the richness of
their own.
29. Integrity. Leaders live integrity, instead of relying on
preachments and pointing fingers. They know that leadership by
integrity is realistic and workable; that in reality, there is no fit
substitute for it.
30. Results, not activity. Excellent leaders concentrate on results
rather than activity. They measure the performance of their team
members in terms of results and their contribution to company
objectives. They believe that people are on the payroll for only one
reasonto make a significant contribution to company objectives and to
grow. They believe one must do the job or get out of it.
31. Candor. Leaders practice truth rigorously and reflect a true
warmth of feeling toward their associates. They have the guts to say
what ought to be said. They practice positive warmth in the process.
32. Management by example. Leaders know that the actions of a
responsible leader are contagious, and that there is virtually no limit to
potential accomplishment if leaders set the example of looking for
strengths and expecting the best.
33. A clear philosophy. Leaders make sure that their organization's
phi-
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losophy and objectives are researched, developed, and clearly
communicated. They believe the philosophy must pervade and
saturate everything in the organization and form the foundation of its
culture.
34. Accountability. Leaders believe people are more efficient and
happier when they understand clearly what results are expected of
them and when they are involved in determining these results.
35. Purpose and direction. Leaders are visionaries. They know that
all team members will contribute and receive more if they are helped
to develop clear feelings of purpose, direction, dignity, and
expectations. They provide direction, not directions. They explain
very thoroughly what they want, but leave the how up to their team
members.
36. Expectations of excellence. Leaders know that perhaps the
finest gift you can give another person is the gift of a stretching
expectation based on a never-ending search for that person's strengths.
37. Laserlike focus. Leaders compare the average group of people
on one hand and their untapped possibilities on the other to the
difference between an ordinary room full of diffused particles of light
and the laser beam with its mind-boggling propensities and
possibilities. They know the answer is:
Vision + Focus + Action = The G Forces of the Future
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CHAPTER 14
LEADERSHIP BY RENEWAL
The central purpose of managing by renewal is to make effective use of the
strengths of the organization to fulfill organizational dreams. Computerized
strengths banks can facilitate mind-boggling innovations during the turbulent
decade ahead.
Humans are delightful skinfuls of variables. They are unpredictable,
unique, and important. How can we get to know people quickly and
well? One important way is to seek diligently to discover their
strengths, because each person is the sum of these strengths.
Weaknesses are only missing strengths; they only confuse us and
indicate what the other person is not. How can we help people to feel
significant and worthwhile? One of the best ways is to constantly look
for and expect their best. In this way we begin to employ the principle
of high expectations. Second-rate expectations
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suggest second-rate regard for others. First-rate expectations say
clearly and distinctly, ''I think you are first-rate. I value you."
The central premise here is that we can best help people discover
themselves, etch out their uniqueness and individuality, and grow in
confidence and significance when we care enoughin the real toughminded and tenderhearted senseto help them become all they can be.
When we care enough to:
Constantly look for their best
Consistently expect their best
Compensate them in relation to their performance
Provide a vision and expective focus
THE NEED FOR SIGNIFICANCE
In the on-the-job sense, the usual undesirable indicessuch as turnover,
absenteeism, and low moralewould be vastly reduced if all team
members felt more significant and useful.
It is important to understand the difference between self-esteem and
significance. You might have a reasonable measure of self-esteem, but
still feel underchallenged, underused, and underactualized, and
therefore less than fully significant.
Paul "Bear" Bryant, the legendary football coach at the University of
Alabama, said there are five things that winning team members need
to know:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Tell me what you expect from me.
Give me an opportunity to perform.
Let me know how I'm getting along.
Give me guidance where I need it.
Reward me according to my contribution.
Of course, we need love and respect from others, but we won't feel
fully significant unless our conscience tells us we are using and
constructively realizing our possibilities.
THE SEVEN PHASES OF THE SYSTEM
Now let's examine the seven phases that constitute the mechanisms of
the system of leadership by renewal. Look back at Figure 6.1, which
illustrates these seven phases. Here I will touch on just a few of the
key elements that are required for active operation. The discussion can
serve as a basis for beginning a strengths-management system in your
organization.
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Phase 1. Strengths Identification
Here the goal is to determine the reality of the individuals, their
strengths, and thus determine the real capacity and potential of the
organization. To accomplish this, implement these three steps:
1. Complete individual inventories of all members of the team.
Search for real and demonstrated strengths as well as those hoped for.
2. List "victories"past experiences where people achieved a
measure of what they hoped for.
3. List individual objectives and relate them to job objectives.
These should indicate strengths that can contribute directly to job
results.
I firmly believe that the bottom linewhich is the most unerring
indication of strengths deploymentwill be greatly improved when
leaders make an organizational investment in helping all team
members really think through and work out personal objectives for
themselves.
When you conduct interviews, listen for strengths. Don't get bogged
down and preoccupied with weaknesses.
Phase 2. Strengths Classification
Here you are working to determine precisely what the relative kinds
and types of strengths are. This is where a computerized strengths
bank really pays for itself.
Prepare anecdotal records listing key strengths of your team
members. A primary step here is to ask the group to provide you with
a list of their strengths classified according to their own priorities.
Categorize and computerize the inventories for practical and
applied use. Look for:
Decision-making strengths: evaluation skills
Problem-solving strengths: analytical skills
Face-to-face strengths: communication skills
List degrees of strengths, from major to minor. It is important to
know weaknesses so that you can determine what additional strengths
are needed or what is needed to develop existing strengths further.
Develop strengths software.
Phase 3. Strengths Development
Policies, procedures, and practices are designed to increase the
strengths and the effectiveness of all personnel, in terms of
performance. To develop team members' strengths to the maximum,
take these steps:
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Prepare and disseminate a companywide philosophy stressing
strengths development.
Conduct research to determine training and development needs
and specific requirements.
Prepare a thoughtful strengths-development plan.
Implement the plan. For example, you might set up:
Computerized strength banks and strengths-access software
Specifically designed modules
Assessment centers
Career path planning
Carefully designed assignment of position and job content
Provision of specific strengths-actualization information
Personnel planning
You cannot develop mechanistic elements such as equipment, paper,
floorspace, and written processes. You can develop only living human
strengths.
Phase 4. Assignment of Strengths
The implications here for high individual and organizational morale
are enormous. Essentially, the proper and full use of their strengths is
the greatest single need of people. Making the right hiring decisions
can mean the difference between success and failure of the company.
The challenge is to find people whose strengths you need and put
them in positions where they can use them. You're looking for three
different kinds of strengths:
1.
Demonstrated and tested strengths. In actuality, this is what
people are paid for. This is performance! Use these strengths where
they will be the most effective in helping both the individual and the
company meet goals.
2.
Suspected strengths. These can be verified and rewarded only
by stretching assignments.
3.
Expected strengths. These help employees discover who they
are, what they can be, and what they can do; this is one practical way
to describe and understand the process of leadership.
Be prepared to depart from basing assignments on mechanistic
assumptions of the traditional roles of women, men, minorities, or
other groups. Shift from role orientation to goal orientation, thus
bringing strengths fully to bear. Develop imaginative computer
software in your computerized strengths bank that can give you
enormous help in applying these principles.
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Phase 5. Synergy and Expectations
True synergy is invariably the product of a wise blend of strengths.
The wisdom of this blend is usually in direct proportion to the clarity,
logic, and relevance of the expectations developed. Here are three
suggestions for developing your expectation instruments, thus
bringing your team members together:
1.
Positive accountability provisions. The proper use of
accountability is always to focus on and maximize the use of
strengths, never to become preoccupied with weaknesses.
2.
Results expected. In other words, statements of what you want
done. Such commitments should be products of sound discussion and
involvement sessions.
3.
Performance standards. These will help determine how well the
job should be done.
Here you will be involved in training and counseling your human
resources. Some key requirements of effective coaching are'.
Positive listening. Make sure you really hear their wants, needs,
and problems.
Vulnerability and openness. We grow and discover new capacities
and abilities only when we are vulnerable and open.
Flexibility and versatility. Rigidity is like rigor mortis. Life and
growth are synonymous with supple attitudes and practices.
In this phase, the principle of high expectations comes alive. In all
your interactions with your team members, remember these
guidelines:
Express caring. Keep trying to evoke the best in others. To do less
is to indicate lack of caring.
Motivate. Help clarify the individual's motives (objectives) and
relate them to the motives (objectives) of the organization.
Clarify. Emphasize each individual's strengths. Discover the
renewing pleasure of giving earned praise consistently and zestfully.
Stretch. Require the individual to reach deeply within to find the
strengths to increase quality or quantity of performance.
Build teamwork and real self-esteem. We can truly respect
ourselves and reach out cooperatively to others only when we feel we
are doing reasonably tough or difficult things.
Although the end results of such synergy are objective measurements
(for example, money), the capacity to generate the optimum measure
of
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these results stems directly from, and in proportion to, the use of
subjective strengths like thought, emotions, and attitude.
Phase 6. Strengths Measurement
Measure the strengths of people, money, materials, time, and space by
overhauling all policies, procedures, processes, practices, and
programs to reflect strengths emphasis. This emphasis should be
incorporated into the following:
Annual reports. Describe new possibilities inherent in the
resources (people, money, materials, time, and space) of the
organization.
Budgets and forecasts. Include possibility thinking, which moves
beyond the typical comparisons with past achievements.
Profit plans. Organization manuals.
Policy manuals. Make sure that all standard operating policies and
procedures are redesigned and rewritten to reflect strengths emphasis.
Progress reports. Stress progress toward objectives rather than
weaknesses or deviations.
Strength audits. Systematically measure actual performance compared
to estimated possibilities.
Manpower inventories. Reflect current and projected estimates of
strengths resources. (In reality, the only resources of an organization
are its strengths.)
Visual inspection.
Memoranda.
Committees. Be sure all discussions, plans, and actions make the
shift from "trouble shooting" to "possibility shooting."
Individual service standards. Build into every position a prioritized
component that stresses service as basic to all else.
Phase 7. Control of Strengths
It is virtually redundant to say "control of strengths" because control
by its very definition in the TML lexicon is the focused, expected, and
monitored utilization of strengths to achieve targeted results. Control
need not be even remotely coercive, repressive, or stultifying. Rather
it must derive from focus, stretch, expectiveness, and other elements
that follow:
Positive listening. The terms positive and strength are
synonymous, just as negative and weakness are. We can listen
positively only if we feel secure in our awareness of our own strength.
Compensation. This is related directly to demonstrated
strengthsresults.
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Performance appraisal. Managerial assessments, incident files, and
face-to-face interaction that build on strengths rather than focus on
weaknesses.
Many fine organizations are beginning to exemplify this strengths
paradigm in a preliminary way. In his book, People Power (1988),
John Noe describes the system he is employing in his company,
Industrial Housekeeping Management Systems, Inc.:
The first step was to analyze every position in terms of the strengths
needed and arrive at a profile of the person who would be successful in the
position. Then, we began to systematically evaluate each applicant through
the use of resume, employment application, personality assessment tools,
interviews with questions targeted at the applicant's weaknesses, and
references, and to determine how the individual would complement those
who were already employees or who would be members of the newly
formed team. We selected our management employees based on the known
probability that they would succeed.
BEYOND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT TO
ORGANIZATIONAL RENEWAL
If you still have any doubts about the power of expectation, you may
be interested in this fascinating experiment, described by consultant
Harold McAlindon, a long-time colleague:
Organization actualization [renewal] builds and extends the principles of
organization development. A climate of high expectations, for example, is
established in the actualizing organization.
The importance of high expectations in achieving a person's potential was
demonstrated at one school. There, teachers were advised that a unique test
had been devised, one that could spot a youngster who was about to
"bloom" intellectually. In reality no such test existed. The fake test was
called the Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition, but it was actually an
unfamiliar and little-used standard test of intelligence.
The teachers were asked to give this test and were advised that the top 20
percent would be the children about ready to surge ahead, regardless of
their development to date. The teachers did not see the actual scores,
which were irrelevant anyway. Instead, they were given the names of the
top 20 percent group and told to expect rapid intellectual growth and
development. In reality the names were chosen by random selection.
A year later the same children were tested. The results were interesting.
Dramatic increases on test scores were found in the 20 percent
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group. Simply because teachers were told to expect progress with certain
children, progress took place. Gains in I.Q. scores were as great as 50
percent in a single year. No special techniques were given the teachers to
influence this change. No special tools or materials were provided. The
only difference was in the attitude of the teacher. The teacher expected
growth and improvement and got it.1
A RENEWING PHILOSOPHY
The Employee Bill of Rights of Saga Administrative Corporation
guarantees team members:
1. The right to give and receive feedback.
2. The right of fair treatment in every area of work experience.
3. The right to basic dignity, respect, and personal identity as a human
being.
4. The right to a style of management that enhances self-esteem and
dignity as a person.
5. The right to have the opportunity for a meaningful job for which they
are qualified.
6. The right to be consulted and involved in those decisions that relate to
the employee's job.
7. The right to be involved in social action programs.
8. The right to set their own work goals.
9. The right to set their own lifestyle.
10. The right to be creative in the performance of the task and in the
fulfillment of the daily goals.
11. The right to fair compensation for their efforts.
12. The right to work hard to develop in a way that enables them to meet
new challenges.
13. The right to be coached, assisted, and helped in the achievement of
their goals.
14. The right to an optimistic, trusting, caring relationship in their work
environment.
1. Getting the Most Out of Your Job and Your Organizationa collection of
reprints from Supervisory Management (New York: AMACOM, 1980).
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CHAPTER 15
LEAD BY EXAMPLE
The leader is the evangelist for the dream.
DAVE PATTEHSON, APPLE COMPUTER
The last thing organizations need is leaders who are diffident,
tentative, hesitant, or submissive. They need leaders who will confront
tough issues and tough challenges. When your team members look at
you, what do they see? Are you enjoying life? Do you radiate vitality,
well-being, and excitement? Are you a walking example of these
leadership traits?
Impatience for results.
A sense of purpose. Leaders know what they are for, what they
want to get done. Their priorities are vision, focus, action.
A positive approach to problems.
The feeling that a problem can be solved until proved otherwise.
Practical judgment. They see the balance among people, money,
materials, time, and space.
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Familiarity with the "six honest serving men": what, where, when,
who, how, and why.
Courage and candor.
A knowledge that all people need recognition, belonging, security,
opportunity, and significance.
Acceptance of the fact that all projects of any significance involve
planning, organization, coordination, direction, and control.
A tough, durable mind that refuses to dissipate mental, physical,
and emotional energy on negative thinking.
A continuous search for strengths.
A zest for life, love, and wholeness.
A style that gives team members in the organization power to
initiate and sustain efforts based on the integrity of an idea.
Probability thinking at all levels.
Belief in intuitiongut feelingsand followthrough.
THE POWER OF TRANSCENDENT GOALS
To fully plumb the possibilities of leading by example, I challenge
you to find yourself by losing yourself in commitment to strong,
stretching, powerful, tough ideas. No team ever finishes ahead of its
leader. A true responsive leader must dare to stand out from the
crowd.
Let's take an example from the world of sports. Tom Davis is the
coach of the University of Iowa basketball team. Here Marc Hansen,
sports columnist for the Des Moines Register, offers some
observations on how Davis's firm, upbeat leadership style makes him
stand out:
If Tom Davis isn't the most positive, controlled college basketball coach in
the country, he's in the top five. His players, he says, face enough negative
feedback dailyfrom the students, the media, and the fanswithout his adding
to the surplus. As Davis sees it, his job is to "deflect" the criticisms and the
pressures. He also wants to eliminate the unrealistic expectations that
accompany a successful programthat's why you'll rarely hear Davis go
overboard in his praise of his best players and especially of incoming
recruits. It seems to work. In all his years as a coach for a major college
team, Davis has never lost a first-round NCAA tournament game. That
isn't to say he never loses his temper or scolds his players. He does, but
never in public and never for protracted periods. After the University of
Iowa lost an emotion-charged overtime game to Iowa State in Ames last
season, Davis locked the dressing room door and administered a severe
verbal spanking. Even the players were taken aback. But after a tense few
minutes, Davis paused and said, "Okay, this one's over, it's finished. Let's
put it behind us." With
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that, he opened the door, walked to his postgame news conferencecalm,
composed and, as always, positive.
The single most important task of leadership is to inspire commitment
to a cause greater than self, commitment to a goal that transcends
material considerations. Style and substance are not mutually
exclusive. Leadership style in action is substance!
IDEALISM OR REALISM?
One day in Boston, where I was presenting a seminar on tough-minded
management, a professor from the Harvard Business School joined me at
the coffee break. "Joe," he said, "I had expected you to be an intensely
practical guy, but I must say you sound to me more like an idealist."
"Thanks."
"I didn't mean that as a compliment," he quickly said; "I paid to learn some
practical management skills."
With a smile, I said, "Would you mind picking up on this conversation
with me when the day is over? I'd really like to know what you think
then."
When the seminar was completed at about 4:30, we sat down together to
talk some more. I will always remember the excellence and clarity with
which he expressed his opinion.
"I think I've got it figured out. There's nothing more impractical than an
idealist with impractical ideals, but there is nothing more practical than an
idealist with practical ideals."
William Ouchi says:
That small spark of desire to change typically comes from a key person
who cares sufficiently about the organization to invest the time, energy and
risk in taking leadership. A manager who chooses to lead his department,
division or company in a new direction can produce sufficient trust and
sufficient incentive for change to sustain the process for some period,
perhaps a year. If, during this period, some signs of prog-
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Figure 15.1. Expective life planning instrument.
ress can be discerned by the followers, then the process of change will
become nearly sell-sustaining.1
To create that kind of climate, to inspire others with your vision, you
must first take the time to clarify your own goals.
Figure 15.1 lays out a schematic PERT approach and presents a
dream, some goals, some skills, and some tasks. The items shown in
the figure are
1. Theory Z (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, © 1981). Excerpt is from
page 99. Reprinted with permission of Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.,
Inc.
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intended only as food for thought. This is simply a model, and I
suggest that you set up your own version of this format, adding the
components of your own dream, goals, skills, and tasks.
Once you have determined your dream and set out goals, skills, and
tasks, you have only stated intentions. Now you need some specifics
to enable you to follow through. Figure 15.2 illustrates an action plan;
use it for each goal indicated in your dream. More about this figure in
Chapter 18.
Next, it is important to monitor your progress to be sure that you are
making steady and consistent gain. The planning control sheet in
Figure 15.3 will help you stay on target.
A CORPORATE EXAMPLE
We Believe in the Dignity of the Individual However large or complex a
business may be, its work is still done by people. Each person involved is
a unique human being, with pride, needs, values and innate personal
worth. For us to succeed we must operate in a climate of openness and
trust, in which each of us freely grants others the same respect,
cooperation and decency we seek for ourselves.
BOBG-WARNEB CORPOBATION
LOVEIS IT TOO BIG FOR YOU?
Leadership is an example! Effective leaders deliberately set an
example of what they expect and want from team members. If quality
and service are truly important to you, exemplify quality and service
in all you say, do, and are.
I believe we may be at a watershed in the evolution of a new toughminded breed of leaders who not only won't shy away from love, but
will perceive the intrinsic power in it. What are the implications for
our jobs? Our families? Our team? Our lives? The story of Big Ed
may help to provide some insights.
I arrived in a city to present a seminar on tough-minded management
to a group from many different organizations. I was met by a group of
people who took me to dinner to brief me on the people I would talk to
the next day.
The obvious leader of the group was Big Ed, a large, burly man with a
deep, rumbling voice. At dinner he informed me that he was a
troubleshooter for a huge international organization. His job was to
go into certain
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Figure 15.2. Action plan for expective living.
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Figure 15.3. Weekly planning control sheet.
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divisions or subsidiaries to terminate the employment of the executive
in charge.
''Joe," he said, "I'm really looking forward to tomorrow because all of
the guys need to listen to a tough guy like you. They're gonna find out
that my style is the right one." He grinned and winked.
I smiled. I knew the next day was going to be different from what he
was anticipating.
The next day he sat impassively all through the seminar and left at the
end without saying anything to me.
Three years later I returned to that city to present another
management seminar to approximately the same group. Big Ed was
there. At about ten o'clock he suddenly stood up and asked loudly,
"Joe, can I say something to these people?"
I grinned and said, "Sure. When anybody is as big as you are, Ed, he
can say anything he wants."
Big Ed went on to say: "All of you guys know me and some of you
know what's happened to me. I want to share it, however, with all of
you. Joe, I think you'll appreciate it by the time I've finished.
"When I heard you suggest that each of us, in order to become really
tough-minded, needed to learn to tell those closest to us that we really
loved them, I thought it was a bunch of sentimental garbage. I
wondered what in the world that had to do with being tough. You had
said toughness is like leather, and hardness is like granite, that the
tough mind is open, resilient, disciplined, and tenacious. But I
couldn't see what love had to do with it.
"That night as I sat across the living room from my wife, your words
were still bugging me. What kind of courage would it take to tell my
wile I loved her? Couldn't anybody do it? You had also said this
should be in the daylight and not in the bedroom. I found myself
clearing my throat and starting and then stopping. My wife looked up
and asked me what I had said and I answered, 'Oh, nothing.' Then,
suddenly, I got up, walked across the room, nervously pushed her
newspaper aside and said, 'Alice, I love you.' For a minute she looked
startled. Then tears came to her eyes and she said softly, 'Ed, I love
you, too, but this is the first time in twenty-five years you've said it like
that.'
"We talked a while about how love, if there's enough of it, can dissolve
all kinds of tensions, and suddenly I decided on the spur of the
moment to call my oldest son in New York. We had never really
communicated well. When I got him on the phone, I blurted out, 'Son,
you're liable to think I'm drunk, but I'm not. I just thought I'd call you
up and tell you I love you.'
"There was a pause at his end and then I heard him say quietly, 'Dad,
I guess I've known that, but it's sure good to hear. I want you to know I
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love you, too.' We had a good chat and then I called my younger son
in San Francisco. We had been closer. I told him the same thing and
this, too, led to a real fine talk like we'd never really had.
"As I lay in bed that night thinking, I realized that all the things you'd
talked about that dayreal management nuts and boltstook on extra
meaning, and I could get a handle on how to really apply them, if I
really understood and practiced tough-minded love.
"I began to read books on the subject. Sure enough, Joe, a lot of great
people had a lot to say and I began to realize the enormous
practicality of applied love in my life, both at home and at work.
"As some of you guys here know, I really changed the way I worked
with people. I began to listen more and to really hear. I learned what it
was like to try to get to know people's strengths, rather than dwelling
on their weaknesses. I began to discover the real pleasure of helping
people build their confidence. Maybe the most important thing of all
was that I really began to understand that an excellent way to show
love and respect for people was to expect them to use their strengths
to meet objectives we'd worked out together.
"Joe, this is my way of saying thanks. Incidentally, talk about
practical! I'm now executive vice-president of the company and they
call me a pivotal leader. OK, you guys, now listen."
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CHAPTER 16
THE G FORCES OF THE FUTURE
We must dare to confront our possibilities.
A look into the future can be daunting and discouraging, or it can be
pulse-quickening, exciting, and challenging. The tough-minded leader
will welcome the future with open arms and an open mind, with
anticipation and joy.
Let's pull together a few of our recent achievements, look at them, and
attempt to see precisely where we are. We are a few million creatures
on a piece of planetary material driftingwith purpose, we hopethrough
a vast and uncharted macrocosm. To what end?
Management practitioners and pundits have been concerned with the
following management basics for a number of years.
1. The management process: Plan, organize, execute, coordinate,
and control
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2.
Involvement and commitment
3. Management by objectives (call it what you will) 4. Results
measurement 5. Accountability
6. Reduction of individual and intergroup conflict 7.
Communication and motivation 8. Performance standards
9.
10.
Organization planning and design
Maximization of profit
We've focused on these, and they have paid offat least partially. On
the stage of international commerce, we've lost a step. We must
dramatically accelerate the development of leadership and
technological innovations if we are to remain competitive in world
markets.
Significant changes must occur in the value systems of leaders,
changes that bring a greatly heightened interest in the positive
potential of other people. The final goalhere and now, and perhaps
foreveris to achieve abundance of the human spirit. From this spirit
flows all innovation, all creativity, and all else that is renewing. From
this spirit comes the motivating powerthe G forces of the future. The
end of tunnel vision may be in sight.
HEADLAMPS FOR TOMORROW'S MINES
As new leaders seek to mine the riches of the human spirit, they must
strive always to free themselves from the negative pull of the G forces
of the past. Here are some ideas for people who want to remove the
straitjacket of obsolescence. These statements range from criticism
and recommendations to challenges. They are all intended to shed
light on a murky future.
Are you ready for the age of cybernetics, synergy, and high
touch/high tech? (If you have to look up the meaning of two or more
of these words, you may be pretty obsolete already!)
Did you know that the only usable equipment all of us take to
work each day is our minds?
Would your team continue to follow you if you had no rank, title,
or vested authority? Would the quality of your mind expressed
through example be sufficient?
Do you agree that the leading society in the world in the year 2000
will be the one that has won the race for inner space, the space
between the ears?
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Did you know that America still produces approximately 40
percent of the world's wealth with 6 percent of the world's population?
If we subtract all the nonbusiness people from that 6 percent we
would have about 1 percent left. If we subtract all nonmanagement
people from that 1 percent we would have only a small fraction of 1
percent of the world's population represented by American business
leadership. This tiny fraction is the group that has been most
responsible for the great increase in the world's level of material
abundance, still so woefully short of its potential.
What if this same groupthese managers and potential leaders of
American businesseswere to become informed and committed to
abundance of the human spirit? Faith is seeking adventure in new
dreams, new territories, new methods and techniquesmoving boldly
into uncharted ways.
Foundations are allocating large sums for studies into the causes of
addictions and illnesses. Suppose greater amounts were spent to study
the causes of compassion and confidence? Of human optimization?
Of growth and renewal?
Suppose that business were to go all out to sponsor studies on the
following negative and positive G forces?
G Forces of the Past
Mental myopia
Fear
Despair
Mental illness
Sick businesses
Economic failure
Greed
Dishonesty
G Forces of the Future
Mental vision
Courage
Hope
Mental health
Healthy businesses
Economic success
Service
Integrity
Fatigue
Dullness
Cynicism
Hate
Insignificance
Doubt
Lethargy and mediocrity
Energy
Brightness
Positiveness
Love
Significance
Faith
Vitality and high energy
There are, of course, many more, but do you see what I'm calling for?
Mental toughness. People whose mental equipment is flabby will
usually choose the easiest and most expedient course in their jobs, in
their relations with family, in their total existence. Expedient thinking
is poor equipment for the future.
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Did you know consultants find that the most common denominator
in the organization that has failed, is mediocre, or is about to fail,
iscall it what you willprocrastination, finger-pointing, blame fixing,
reacting to symptoms rather than to causes? Whatever the label, this
tendency represents the dominance of a set of negative and expedient
values. Such behavior is always associated with a static or rigid mind.
The higher in the organization an executive moves, the greater the
emphasis on qualitative abilities and results and the less emphasis on
quantitative abilities. By the time executives become CEOs, their
contribution is almost wholly in terms of qualitative individual skills
(communication, motivation, and example). But they are still
measured by that implacable quantitative measurement we call the
statement of profit and loss.
There is still a considerable gap between the lip service given to
the importance of developing a comprehensive philosophy of
leadership and the actual implementation of such a philosophy. It
seems we can communicate it better than we can do it.
How practical is a thoughtfully conceived and skillfully
communicated leadership philosophy? One might just as well ask,
"How practical is motivation?" Many psychiatrists believe that the
principal cause of fatigue in America today is a person's failure to
have something bigger and more important than self to live for.
We must recognize that thought is the most productive form of
labor. This is easy to say, not easy to put into action. However,
management should actively implement policies, procedures,
philosophy, processes, and practices based on this premise.
What do you know about what your team members really think?
Conduct attitude surveys regularly, and develop a consistent pattern of
listening and mentoring sessions. Listen, listen, listen to the people
who do the work!
Do you yourself have a clear idea of what is needed to improve the
value of the mind each team member brings to work each day? The
value of your profit posture is usually squarely related to the value of
your vision, focus, commitment, energy, products, and services. This
must be the locus of future leadership training systems.
Two principal concepts represent within themselves a whole
armamentarium of tough-minded values: (1) management by example
and (2) high expectations. Both depend on the principle that we
become what we think. The example you provide is the sum total of
you on display. The overriding challenge becomes one of stoking the
mind so that you are what you say, and what you say is the product of
the best program of individual development you can undertake. Only
when we do this ourselves can we truly expect the best from team
members. Attempting to change the behavior of others without
changing our own is nearly always futile.
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We do not enhance the dignity of people when we expect less than
the best from them in commitment, talent, and effort. They come to
know their strengths, their significance, their relevance when they are
required to reach deep into their reservoir of strength, skill, and
courage to confront the high expectations to which they have given
their commitment. Clear and stretching expectations are, indeed, a gift
and a lift. They pull people into the future.
In common with everyone else, tough-minded leaders have two
principal options as they plug into the future or remain shackled to the
past. These offsetting options may be expressed in several ways:
Build or destroy. Managers can target their ideals, values, and
practices in terms of building or in terms of destroying. If they ignore
the opportunity to build people, products, profit, and so on, they have
automatically elected to destroy the potential for growth.
Good or bad. We can assume either that people are fundamentally bad
and must be coped with, or that people are fundamentally good and
together will build a better department, a better company, or a better
world.
For or against. We can elect to express our abilities in terms of what
we are against and become futile, fragmented people, or we can elect
to function as total human beings because we express our abilities in
terms of what we are for.
Reach or drive. Stretch (lead) or compress (push).
The great leaders of the future will be fanatic about excellence of
service.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE FUTURE
The year 2000, once a benchmark of science fiction, is now very
close. We must do our level best to take off our economic, political,
social, psychological, and spiritual blinders. Our methodology must
shift from effect to cause, from treatment to prevention, from better
military technology to better human minds. Increasingly, the
"renegade manager" of today will be recognized as the "renaissance
leader" of tomorrow.
Imperatives of the twenty-first century include intense worldwide
competition, increasingly global markets, and rapid technological
change. But how many of America's future leaders really appreciate
what it will take to succeed in the coming business environment?
Team Members
Increasingly we will see the dissolution of the typical labormanagement contracts, contracts that concentrate on legalese and
loophole-iris-rather than the basic values and beliefs of individuals.
Blue-collar workers
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in the 1990s will have so much interaction with automated equipment
on the job that they will need mental refreshment and challenge off
the job (or as planned parts of the day's work). This will be a task for
both society as a whole and leadership educators in particular. Centers
for continuing education and development will expand exponentially.
We will see much more emphasis on an internal climate based on the
belief that peopleeven a small group of themwho know what they are
for are always in a better position to achieve uncommon objectives
than those who know only what they are against. The potential for
synergistic action and results is much greater. We must go all out to
build the concept and reality of one tightly knit, unified team.
Education for Human Optimization
Dr. J. Bonner Ritchie of Brigham Young University advocates that we
dissolve our schools of management and start all over again. He may
have something there. It is absolutely vital that our schools of
business, particularly myopic MBA programs, undertake the value
system described in this book. What about comprehensive courses,
even college majors, in positive reinforcement? What about massive
educational efforts to study the causes of joy, health, achievement, and
success rather than the causes of gloom, depression, sickness, and
failure? It is predicted that education will have moved sharply in this
direction by the year 2000. The equipment and techniques needed to
implement such teaching and learning can be better discussed by
individual specialists; I am simply calling for a sprint toward the light,
not a retreat into darkness. We must confront our possibilities. Ross
Perot says that when business schools tell him they know of no text
suitable for teaching the kind of leadership he calls for, his response
is, "Use Tough-Minded Leadershipit's all there."
It must cease to be intellectually trendy to engage only in dissent and
debunking. Suppose the average executive made a strong attempt to
understand and apply the core ideas in Immanuel Kant's Critique of
Pure Reason to the daily job. This would require real pragmatic
intellectualism and could produce a kind of mental toughness that
would in turn contribute much to both personal and company
objectives. The secret of retaining economic power lies squarely in the
demonstrated ability to apply our minds in a wise and positive way in
the use and creation of financial resources. In short, the perpetuation
of meaningful and viable economic power is utterly dependent on
mental power.
The Technological Explosion
The dazzling array of new technological resources for the enrichment
of the human condition includes biotechnology, computer software in
which
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quantum leaps are becoming the norm, personal computers,
fiberoptics, new materials, robotics, and lasers. Biomedical science,
for one example, is examining a wide spectrum of issues, including
development of human life, gene therapy to correct inherited defects,
new drugs based on the body's own proteins, a better understanding of
cancer, and replaceable body parts.
Neuroscience is examining how biochemistry helps to determine our
behavior. Using that information, scientists are creating medicines that
mimic the brain's chemistry in efforts to control Alzheimer's disease,
stroke, and depression. Heart attack fatalities should plummet
dramatically as the new clotbusters move into general use. The second
major breakthrough is sophisticated new methods of angioplasty and
nutritional chelation.
Laser technology is still in its very early phases. The U.S. Department
of Defense had spent $1.5 billion on the development of high-energy
lasers by the mid-1990s; the Soviet Union had met or exceeded that
amount. Exciting new laser advances are expected in many areas.
Among them:
Medicine. Clogged arteries will be opened with lasers. This can
revolutionize the treatment of arteriosclerosis.
Energy. Laser-created nuclear fusion may produce energy from
seawater.
Communications. Combined with fiberoptics, lasers can provide
hundreds more television channels. Some scientists believe our
grandchildren will be watching lifelike three-dimensional holographic
TV and movies, courtesy of lasers.
Scientific research. Lasers today drill miniscule holes in living
cells so that other genetic matter can be inserted. They will likely play
a growing role in genetic engineering.
Entirely new and radically different kinds of lasers will appear. As our
knowledge of light and matter grows, lasers will make practical what
can barely be done today, and make possible what is not yet dreamed
of.
The immense possibilities of the new art and science of computerized
parallel processing aided by new breakthroughs in application of
superconductivity will make even the term technological quantum
leap seem like an understatement. But, lest we lose sight of our
priorities, let's remember this comment from marketing vice-president
Buck Rodgers, after his thirty-five years with IBM:
Although I've spent my adult life working in a world of high technology, I
fervently believe that it will be people, not machines, that save this country
from drowning in a sea of mediocrity.1
1. Getting the Best Out of Yourself and Others (New York: Harper & Row,
1987).
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Figure 16.1. The challenge of the future.
New Galaxies to Conquer?
Will we one day participate in intergalactic and extraterrestrial
relationships? If so, will we approach these new worlds with an
attitude that we are superior beings who have set out to colonize,
establish military bases, and run things in our own way? We don't
know. Perhaps we will never know. But while we wait and ponder, we
might do well to shift our sights from a dogmatic conquest of outer
space to an enlightened conquest of inner spacethe latent possibilities
implicit in the space between our ears.
A HEYDAY FOR VISIONARY ARCHITECTS
Human progress is slow, sometimes unsteady, but constant. Human
possibilities are virtually unlimited if the motive thrust of people is
fueled by a positive and relevant system of values. The rewards for
the tough-minded person are great. But the hazards are also great,
especially if we confuse the search for self-actualization and its
emphasis on strengths with the search for self-destruction and its
emphasis on weaknesses.
Figure 16.1 illustrates the ascent from a preoccupation with the
requirements of stomach and wallet, to an impatient quest for greater
significance as a fully functioning person. It shows the evolution of
management from static, stratified structures to a synergistic process
of leadership. The result will be a fluid, dynamic, and very responsive
whole made up of fluid,
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dynamic individuals who possess strong feelings of purpose,
relevance, and significance.
The search for full functioning of the self promises to be the most
fruitful endeavor the modern and relevant leader can undertake. The
potential yield from money, material, time, and space will continue to
be limited until new breakthroughs are made in the understanding of
people. A brand-new look at the nature of objectives as expectives is
an important early step. Objectives will need to be formulated and
stated in qualitative terms, with more sophisticated use of quantitative
measurement. The computer does not provide direction, establish
values, or create the stimulating, productive environmentall of which
adds up to value-added performance. These can only be done by the
minds of peoplethe everlasting frontier!
In summary, remember that the tough-minded leader will increasingly
pursue a life of tough rational purpose and, above all, a surging
awareness of the joy of building.
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CHAPTER 17
TOOLING FOR CHANGE
Change will be the one constant for the rest of your life. You will never find the
ideal management process or culture.
LAWRENCE MILLER, PRESIDENT
L. M. MILLER & COMPANY, IN EXECUTIVE EXCELLENCE
Attitude is everything. Our attitudes are, of course, a product of our
experience, the information we ingest, the thoughts we think, the
words we use, and the ways other people respond to us. In global
terms we must raise our sights, loosen our biases, and let our minds go
forth. Great goals are never reached until you decide to dare to fail.
We must confront the need for change. Indeed, we must covet and
savor it. We must take decisive steps to put muscle into our dreams.
My colleague Donald Kirkpatrick, professor emeritus from the
University of Wisconsin, says the three keys to managing change are
1) empathy, 2) communication, and 3) participation.
THIRTY-FIVE TOUGH-MINDED CONVERSIONS
My colleagues and I have put together a list of thirty-five conversions, changes we
believe are essential. They are a distillation of the ideas discussed throughout this
book. I recommend it to all dedicated leaders as a working tool kit as you confron
the need for change, innovation, and new dimensions of creativity.
From G Forces of the Past
Role orientation
''Importance"
Insecurity
Programs
Vague, adequate expectations
Defensiveness
Activity documents and reports
Hunch and guess
Inconsistency
Conformity
Competing with others
Complexity
Avoidance of problems and needs
Dialogue
Crises and fire fighting
Office politics
Blurred, expedient morality
Reaction related to symptoms
Disparate, dissonant actions and
procedures
Compensation based on actions and
personal characteristics
Fragmentation
Getting
Preoccupation with weaknesses
To G Forces of the Future
Goal orientation
Significance
Significance
System
Clear, stretching expectations
Open, war, thoughtful candor
Progress documents and reports
Disciplined decisions
Consistency
Individuality
Competing with self
Simplicity
Confrontation of problems and needs
Communication
"Early warning systems"
Team synergy
Tough, stretching moral climate
Action related to causes
Unity
Compensation based on positive
performance
Purpose and direction
Giving
Building on strengths
Preoccupation with weaknesses
Commitment to self only
Benign neglect
Negative listening
Dissatisfaction (past-oriented)
Gamesmanship
Building on strengths
Commitment to goals and objectives
that transcend self
Caring
Positive listening
Unsatisfaction (future-oriented)
Accountability for results
From G Forces of the Past
Superficial preoccupation with
behavioral science jargon
Affirmative-action jargon and
dialogue
Uncertainty
Confusion
Physical adequacy
Grimness
Passive erosion
To G Forces of the Future
Analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and synergy o
tough-minded possibilities
Evaluating all people on the basis of
performance
Self-confidence
Viable personal faith beyond self
Physical fitness
Buoyancy
Passionate renewal
Conversion No. 1
From: Role orientation
To: Goal orientation
To become enmeshed and trapped by the self-defeating concept of role is
counterproductive. The confines are so narrow we hesitate to innovate, take risks,
and grow, which means a gradual retreat into the shadows. To leave this orientatio
behind, it is vital that each person be encouraged, aided, and trained to formulate
specific personal goals that are meaningfully related to organizational and work
goals. For example, a team member who is role oriented would say: "I am a
general assembler." With a goal orientation, this same person would say, "I'm part
of the team that delivers the 2000 line of microprocessors on schedule."
Conversion No. 2
From: "Importance"
To: Significance
Policies, procedures, and practices must actually reflect the belief that while
importance may be enhanced by compliments and benefits, the true feelings of
significance, dignity, worth, and individuality come from an organizationwide
focus on strengths and clear, stretching expectations.
Conversion No. 3
Conversion No. 3
From: Insecurity
To: Significance
Feelings of security result in greater productivity and are enhanced when we live
and function in an expective environment. Feelings of purpose and direction,
which are fundamental human yearnings, provide fuel to function fully, to give
feelings of significance.
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Conversion No. 4
From: Programs
To: System
One of the major reasons stereotypical management by objectives has
generally tended to fall far short of its potential is that diffusion brings
about delusion and confusion. To be highly productive, individuals
and groups need feelings of consonance, focus, unity, teamwork.
An assortment of projects, procedures, and programs, often random
and crisis related, will not meet the pressing needs ahead.
Systemwhere the whole consists of smoothly coordinated and
synchromeshed components, where real symbiosis and synergy
resultis urgently needed. The key building blocks for such a system
are the positive G forces described throughout this book.
Conversion No. 5
From: Vague, adequate expectations
To: Clear, stretching expectations
Over many years of consulting, I have been encouraged when I see
how individual lives (as well as corporations) begin to change when
components of the organization are based on clear and stretching
expectations, rather than directives. In reality, the language of the
entire organization should change from vague, arbitrary, rigid,
sporadic directiveness to clear, evocative, stretching, supple
expectiveness.
Conversion No. 6
From: Defensiveness
To: Open, warm, thoughtful candor
It is truly self-defeating to the organization that supplies the
paychecks when all communications are approached with excessive
caution and defensiveness. Creativity and innovation cannot flourishor
even survivein such a climate. For real leadership by integrity (which
means precisely the same as leadership by strengths) to make a
maximum impact on the bottom line, the example must start at the top
and be reinforced by clearly communicated expectations based on
openness, warmth, candor, and trust. This lets the walls of
defensiveness dissolve and sets the stage for real communication to
begin.
Conversion No. 7
From: Activity documents and reports
To: Progress documents and reports
In the positive G force climate, three things must be clearly
understood:
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1.
Compensation is directly related to performance.
2. Performance and results are the only criteria for promotions and
perquisites.
3. All decisions and assessments are based on performance
progress.
Therefore all reports should deal primarily with the progress being
made toward performance commitments.
Conversion No. 8
From: Hunch and guess
To: Disciplined decisions
Since effective, profitable decisions are what the leader is really paid
for, there is nothing more vital than that they be made in the most
effective way possible. Discipline depends on information that flows
out of the consistent application of six ordinary tools: what, where,
when, who, how, and why. In addition, major decisions should be
processed through:
The A-B-C Principle
Analyze the alternatives.
Balance the benefits.
Calculate the contingencies.
Then act.
Conversion No. 9
From: Inconsistency
To: Consistency
If a strategy is to be fully accomplished, it must be planned and
executed with consistency and reliability. Inconsistency brings
confusion. When you provide consistency of expectations, example,
and decisions, people can follow you because energy is focused into
productive action. It's like going from the diffused illumination of a
light bulb to the concentrated, intensified power of a laser beam.
Conversion No. 10
From: Conformity
To: Individuality
Innovation, creativity, and vitality do not flow from rubber-stamp
groups. If the units of an organization are to function in coordinated,
syn-chromeshed fashion, the individuals in them must feel a
consistent heightened awareness of:
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Present and potential strengths
Involvement in plans and performance standards
Being valued as persons
Being listened to
Clarity of expectations
Compensation tailored to individual results
Conversion No. 11
From: Competing with others
To: Competing with self
When we compete with others, we have a considerable number of
built-in copouts. It is so easy to see something in others that can lull us
into relative complacency and mediocrity. To compete with our own
internally generated goals or objectives is to potentially experience
our finest hour, to confront our possibilities. When a company or
department consistently competes with its own goals, its own selfgenerated targets, it removes much of the usual grist for internal
politicking, finger pointing, gossip, bickering, and other forms of
morale-vitiating behavior. It is virtually impossible to even approach
optimum productivity when "who gets the credit" is primary. In a
department that is truly led, team members relish mentioning the
accomplishments and pluses of their colleagues.
Conversion No. 12
From: Complexity
To: Simplicity
In our culture, all too often we confuse complexity with difficulty. We
are inclined to feel virtuous when we avoid the simple and do the
complicated. But in reality, the complicated is easy; it is tough to
reduce down to simplicity. We must somehow blast the notion that
sophistication requires greater intellect and commitment than
mastering the basic truths needed to arrive at lean, clean, and clear
solutions. The more complex the problem, the greater the need for
clear thinking to achieve the simplest (best) solution.
Conversion No. 13
From: Avoidance of problems and needs
To: Confrontation of problems and needs
Nothing erodes confidence and vigor as much as procrastination. This
insidious practice can best be rooted out with candid confrontation
that blows away the mists of rationalization and stimulates the growth
of reality. Procrastination is a prime example of what results from
negative G forces. The pull of these insidious factors from the past
can produce diffi-
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dence, hesitancy, and other forms of anxiety that stultify decisiveness
and crisp action.
Conversion No. 14
From: Dialogue
To: Communication
I define dialogue as "two or more people engaged in monologues." In
contrast, communication is "shared meaning, shared understanding."
When we truly communicate, superior morale, cooperation,
coordination, and control produce superior motivation and
productivity. The synergistic synthesis of people, money, materials,
equipment, time, and space can truly happen only when real
communication occurs.
Conversion No. 15
From: Crises and fire fighting
To: "Early warning systems"
The benefits of this conversion are obvious to any thinking manager.
Good intentions are not enough in the volatile global arena. The
commitment to planning and forward thinking, or tomorrowmindedness, must flow down from the very top of the organization
and should be clearly set forth in the company philosophy. An
excellent example of this is item 7 from the leadership pledge of the
Marriott Corporation (the complete pledge is found in Chapter 3):
To make sure they always know in advance what I expect [emphasis
mine] from them in the way of conduct and performance on the job.
The benefits of such strategic, tactical, and practical planning are
enormous. Not only is productivity greater, work is more fun!
Conversion No. 16
From: Office politics
To: Team synergy
Creating the type of climate in which political activity is held to a
minimum requires personal leadership of the highest order. For
success, positive, tough-minded leaders must:
Recognize that politicking will exist in any organization or group,
but that its extent is directly related to leaders' attitudes and that it can
be controlled and virtually eradicated by them.
Demonstrate that political activity will not result in benefit to any
in-
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dividual by reacting negatively to political overtures and basing all
rewards upon individual contribution to organizational objectives.
Identify political situations quickly and deal with them firmly and
openly.
Know when people are making an optimum contribution to the
company and when they are not. Key all actions to performance.
Have the courage to bring unpleasant personal situations into the
open. Be intolerant of hints, innuendoes, or oblique gamesmanship.
Require people to say what they think in a candid, straightforward
way.
Create the necessary tools and administrative procedures within
the organization to ensure that people:
Know what is expected of them in terms of specific results.
Know where they stand; when they are doing a good job and
when they are not.
Know why they are working in terms of clearly understood
objectives and individual contributions to them.
See beyond themselves; are as concerned about the company
and its welfare as with their own well-being.
Are rewarded generously for outstanding performance.
The connotation of internal politics is almost always negative. It saps
the vitality of a company, creating a climate and spirit in which the
full productivity and potential of its people cannot be realized. Truly
productive individuals will not become a part of such a climate or
remain with such an organization. They know it will drain them of
enthusiasm, dedication, ambition, loyalty, and self-satisfaction.
Capable individuals want and need to be judged on their worth and
contribution. Capable leaders want and need people whose strengths
complement theirs.
Conversion No. 17
From: Blurred, expedient morality
To: Tough, stretching moral climate
A searching study of the rise and fall of past civilizations of the world
reveals irrefutably that the viability and vitality of each was closely
paralleled by the rise and decline of morality. Studies of great
corporations that have risen and fallen revealed precisely the same
patterns. Good ethics are no longer ancillary to operations. They are
more than saccharine slogans. They are crucial. And they are so
eminently practical! The philosophy of the company must make it
absolutely clear that integrity is the beginning and the end of all
policies, procedures, practices, processes, programs, and people in the
organization. It's good business. I repeat, integrity and strength mean
precisely the same thing.
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Conversion No. 18
From: Reaction related to symptoms
To: Action related to causes
This is very similar to Conversion No. 11. We tend to react and
respond to externally imposed directives. Conversely, we tend to
initiate and activate programs, procedures, and practices that stem
from our own internally generated expectations. As tough-minded
leaders, we truly move forward when we commit ourselves to
substituting expectiveness for directiveness.
Conversion No. 19
From: Disparate, dissonant actions and procedures
To: Unity
Modern leaders can learn something from sheepherders. Studies have
shown that there is a distinct difference in the quality of the wool of
flocks that are driven by the shepherd and flocks that follow the
shepherd. Those that were driven were apparently in a constant state
of confusion, ran to and fro, and required constant surveillance. They
didn't eat well, didn't sleep well, and probably didn't even feel well.
Any of this sound familiar? Those that followed a leader could
perceive an objecta personahead, focus on him with a much higher
measure of relaxation and, I venture to say, purpose and direction.
They could devote their energies to what sheep do best: eating,
grazing, sleeping, and becoming fat, fit, and profitable. Is there a
parallel here for you?
Conversion No. 20
From: Compensation based on actions and personal characteristics
To: Compensation based on positive performance
If it was considered desirable to deliberately produce dissension,
turnover, a lowered motivation, creativity, and productivity, one of the
most effective ways to do so would be to relate all rewards (money,
promotions, recognition, and perquisites) to such things as:
Seniority
Political infighting skills
Education
"Nice-guyisms"
Color, race, religion, sex
Old school ties
Amount of activity generated Etc., etc.
All elements of the positive G-force climate should be geared to
performance standards. Don't forget, though, that those standards
should be developed with appropriate involvement of the team
members, and that they should provide and reward stretch. I firmly
believe that such a policy can provide even more rapid promotions
and greater rewards for high performers.
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Conversion No. 21
From: Fragmentation
To: Purpose and direction
Purpose and direction are fundamental to the tough-minded expective
company and its tough-minded team. Ideally, all people on the payroll
understand:
The macro vision, the dream.
The mission, philosophy, goals, and objectives of the company.
The objectives, standards, and action plans of their own
organizational units.
The specific authority, responsibility, and, particularly,
accountability provisions of and for their own job.
That all rewards and perquisites are based on performance and
results.
That doing everything possible to fulfill these multiple
expectations will benefit all.
Fragmentation, disparateness, and diffusion all add up to negative
confusion. Positive ferment, however, can and should be stimulated.
Conversion No. 22
From: Getting
To: Giving
This conversion means everything and it means nothing, depending on
our conditioning, experiences, and level of tested insight. It has been
my privilege to work with managers who understand the potential
practicality of the old axiom "The more you give, the more you get."
These leaders have meticulously and tenaciously sought to build this
awareness into every person, policy, procedure, practice, and program
in their area of responsibility. The person who truly understands this
knows that while it does indeed require disciplined effort, the
pervasive use of this truth can move their organization far beyond
Theories X, Y, and Z.
Conversion No. 23
From: Preoccupation with weakness
To: Building on strengths
The crucial necessity for this conversion is fundamental to everything
I've said in this book. Let's hear what a couple of others have to say.
According to Robert Heller:
There is only one protection in good times and in bad, and it doesn't lie in
technology alone, or even mainly. Play consistently to your
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strengths and invest consistently in them and you won't need to change
your flavor.1
And in the words of Peter Drucker:
To build on [a person's] strengths, that is, to enable him to do what he can
do, will make him effective. . . . To try to build on his weaknesses will be .
. . frustrating and stultifying.2
The tough-minded leader knows that building on strengths and
positive reinforcement are identical.
Conversion No. 24
From: Commitment to self only
To: Commitment to goals and objectives that transcend self
Throughout America much effort and money are being spent unwisely
for "employee motivation," on the basis of the cynical notion that
people in general are fundamentally interested in self-serving actions.
Research, experience, and deep reflection will reveal to the manager
that high levels of motivation are created and built only when
members of a team are committed to beliefs that transcend their own
wants and needs. History is replete with examples of people who
accomplished infinitely more than the sum of their individual efforts
could possibly suggest because of stretchingoften
sacrificialphilosophies.
Every dimension of the great organization of the future will be
saturated with commitment to service. We denigrate people's dignity
when we assume they do not want to give, build, create, and, yes, to a
very real extent, sacrifice. This basic and real need can be met and
harnessed for the good of all if we expect with consistency, clarity,
confidence, and courage.
Tough-minded leaders insist, by precept and example, on moving
beyond the idea that people place their creature comforts ahead of
giving, serving, and building. In reality, there is a deep human need to
grow, change, give, and build. But people need leadership to
effectively do so.
Conversion No. 25
From: Benign neglect
To: Caring
Many business organizations stultify the possibilities of their people
with paternalism and directiveness. Real compassion requires
involvement, lis1. The Supermarketers (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1987).
2. The Effective Executive (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.,
1966).
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tening, building on strengths, clear and stretching expectations. As
you study and overhaul your philosophy, policies, practices, and
programs, use this tough-minded maxim as a template:
I will not be my brother's keeper unless he cannot keep himself.
Rather, I want to be my brother's brother and help him keep
himself.
Conversion No. 26
From: Negative listening
To: Positive listening
It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of this conversion. The
success of all the instruments in this book depends on it. Possibly
nothing can make people feel more ignored, hostile, diffident, or
resistant than listening without hearing. Positive or active listening
requires listening with mind, heart, and soulreally hearing.
Conversion No. 27
From: Dissatisfaction (past-oriented)
To: Unsatisfaetion (future-oriented)
Dissatisfaction may be defined as ''reflecting or being hung up on the
failures, insufficiencies, or inadequacies of the past." It is, in effect,
parking beside yesterday's failures and using such failures to justify
avoiding the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Unsatisfaction may be defined as "a healthy, restless commitment to
discovering and accomplishing that which is better: a better lifestyle, a
better policy, procedure, program, or practice." Unsatisfaction is
indeed the stuff of higher motivation and productivity. Satiation is not
a happy state for long, but rather a discrete point on life's continuum, a
launching site for further achievement.
Conversion No. 28
From: Gamesmanship
To: Accountability for results
The productive and synergistic team needs gamesmanship and oneupsmanship like a hole in the head. The perennial politicians within
the organization play a major role in eroding morale, motivation,
energy, and positive peace of mind. They are also really tedious
people to spend time with. Tedious? Yes! What is more boring and
emotionally draining than slyness, innuendo, and sophomoric angles.
Accountability for results helps ensure the elimination of these factors.
Accountability also provides much healthy stimuli in the form of:
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Purpose and direction
System and order
Accomplishment criteria
Rewards and reinforcement
Growth of responsible behavior
Conversion No. 29
From: Superficial preoccupation with behavorial science jargon
To: Analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and synergy of tough-minded possibilities
What a challenge to treat this subject without lapsing into the very
psychobabble I wish to steer you away from! For example:
"Let us interface."
"I know where you're coming from."
"I hear you saying . . ."
"That's where it's at."
"Here's a warm fuzzy for you."
"Let me 'bottom line' you."
"Let me 'parameterize' the situation."
"Let's consider the infrastructure implication."
"Don't invade my space."
I repeat, we not only become what we think, we become what we say.
Research has clearly indicated the productive and stimulating power of crisp,
emotive, evocative, precise language. When the leader begins to master the
art of lean, clean, and meaningful words, followership grows, and this is what
leadership is all about.
Conversion No. 30
From: Affirmative-action jargon and dialogue
To: Evaluating all people on the basis of performance
This again relates to the need for all levels of our society, including
government, business, unions, and all our institutions, to understand the
implication of:
I will not keep my brother unless he cannot keep himself. Rather, I want
to be my brother's brother and help him keep himself.
When all the Ps in the organization reflect this performance-based emphasis,
real dignity and worth are enhanced.
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Conversion No. 31
From: Uncertainty
To: Self-confidence
High productivity and profitablity will always elude the uncertain
organization that operates with diffidence, defensiveness,
procrastination, and diffusion of effort. Philosophy, mission, goals,
objectives, action plans, performance standards, building on strengths,
compensation based on performance, and all the positive G forces in
this book build the self-confidence necessary for profitability and high
productivity.
Conversion No. 32
From: Confusion
To: Viable personal faith beyond self
An organization is only as effective as the individuals in it. True
motivation, vigor, and, yes, joy cannot flourish in a barren soul and
mind that exists primarily for personal gain. The prevalence of this
wrongheaded notion has contributed much to the lag in productivity
and morale we see today. It is basic to the human being to give, to
build, to contribute, to believe, and to expect. Therein lies hope, and
hope is the universal nourishment of all human beings.
Conversion No. 33
From: Physical adequacy
To: Physical fitness
It is encouraging to note the recent dramatic emphasis on fitness and
wellness in business. When days grow long, fatigue can set in. It is
only tough-minded common sense to suppose that people will
function better and make better decisions when they are fit. I predict,
in fact, that "whole person well-being" will receive more attention,
money, and effort than any other area in our society in the coming
years.
Conversion No. 34
From: Grimness
To: Buoyancy
Somehow the notion has proliferated that grim managers are more
practical or tough-minded, that humor is somehow impractical or
unworthy of "important" people. Nothing could be more wrong!
Would you like to work with or follow a grim person with upsidedown mouth and extinguished eyes? Tough-minded leaders who are
committed to expective rather than directive management, leaders
rather than pushers, stretchers rather than compressors, have no time
to waste on downbeat, grim, counterproductive practices. Rather, they
say in effect, "Follow me and we'll get a lot done and have a lot of
fun." You can't do much of one without the other.
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Humor and liveliness dissolve grimness, and create the happy
chemistry that enriches our lives. Victor Borge says laughter is the
shortest distance between two people. Ain't it the truth?
Conversion No. 35
From: Passive erosion
To: Passionate renewal
Real in-depth commitment to passionate renewal in every dimension
of your lifeand thus in your team membersrequires that since no one
can live in neutral, you resolve to use every thought, word, and action
to enhance people rather than diminish them. This is no idle and
idyllic challenge. It does, however, require discipline, courage, and
loveall renewing ingredients. In the next chapter I cover this
conversion in detail.
The whole point of this chapter is that if you want to change
organizational habits, change the people. If you want to change
people, make sure that the right nutrients are provided for their minds.
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CHAPTER 18
THE POWER OF PASSIONATE LEADERSHIP
By using their ambitions, talents and capacity, these leaders have identified
true calling, as it were, and fulfilled their own genius, their visions of
excellence through the application of passion, energy and focus.
WABBEN BENNIS AND BURT NANUS IN LEADERS
My greatest concern up to this point has been operational values,
traits, and functions of tough-minded leadership. In this final chapter
you are invited to examine sixteen elements of a personal pattern of
growth. Since people must feel that they are excellent before doing
excellent work, I invite you to address the sixteen challenges that
follow.
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THE CYBERNETIC CIRCLE OF EXPECTIVE GROWTH
The sixteen elements shown on the cybernetic circle of expective
growth, Figure 18.1, are presented to add human depth and dimension
to the preceding chapters, to aid in building a personal growth path
that fuels the growth of the organization. Please ponder them deeply
and thoughtfully.
While the spiritual component is related to Judeo-Christian values, it
is not intended to exclude other faiths. Although it may seem I have
put a disproportionate emphasis on personal growth, the last fifteen
years should have taught us that team productivity is impossible
without steady and meaningful enhancement of the individual. A team
is, by definition, the sum of its individual strengths. Thirty years ago
American leaders by and large scoffed at "spiritual values" as crucial
dynamics in management. The Japanese have amply demonstrated
that we exclude them at our peril.
Since this is a passionate bookabout hopeful leading and livingI ask
you to take a long, thoughtful look at the cybernetic circle of
expective growth. It is at once both an introduction and a summing up,
my attempt to "put it all together" in a dynamic configuration of both
procedural mechanics and human dynamics. Please join me in
exploring the potential of these sixteen elements in the challenging,
turbulent, and delightful decades ahead.
Challenge No. 1: Self-Knowledge
The logic and power of the maxim "know thyself" is as old as
civilized thought. Today, unfortunately, even though many attempt to
know themselves, few succeed, because of a fundamentally flawed
education in how to do it. The only reality of a person is his or her
strengths. Until this is recognized and built into business, school,
government, church, synagogue, home, and workplace standards, we
will continue as a community of nations to stay plateaued in our quest
toward the far reaches of human possibilities.
We cannot understand a weakness, because a weakness is only an
absence, a fault, a zero, a vacuum, a nothing. We can understand and
acquire only strengths. Once this is fully perceived and understood,
once we realize that the only tools, the only building material, the only
fuel we possess are our present and potential strengths, we can begin
to focus intently on:
What is rather than what isn't.
What can rather than what can't.
What will rather than what won't.
What does rather than what doesn't.
What has rather than what hasn't.
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Figure 18.1. The cybernetic circle of expective growth.
1. Know what you can and will expect from you.
2. Let yourself perceive all your possibilities.
3. Determine specific components of your dream.
4. Decide on what, where, when, who, how, and why of what you
want to be and do.
5. Determine how well the goals can and must be realized.
6. Schedule, prioritize, develop your "life calendar."
7. Apply your mind and skills diligently.
8. Believe in you, in others, and in your own higher power. Believe
others are right unless proved wrong.
9. Believe in your experiences.
10. Love is the central source of energy that makes it all happen.
11. The highest form of mental and spiritual health.
12. Let life in. Seek, quest, appreciate, enjoy.
13. Dissolve your emotional defenses.
14. Savor the flavor of each passing "now."
15. A sure guarantee of growth, change, and fulfillment.
16. Perhaps this is the finest way to express all the other portions of
the circle.
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Please begin an all-out quest for greater awareness and use of all your
current and potential strengths. This is truly the new frontier. The kind
of leader you are tomorrow begins in your mind today.
Challenge No. 2: Your Dream
Knowing yourself stimulates and encourages dreams. It is important
to let ourselves dream freely and soaringly, or we will not know how
to use our mental, physical, and spiritual muscles with any degree of
purpose, discipline, and system.
One of the several goals of this book is to provide you with insights,
concepts, principles, and techniques for putting muscle into your
dreams. But how do we go about defining a dream? What are some of
the ingredients of a possible dream?
Our perception of how we should behave in order to believe and
become is best served by a dream, a transcendent vision of
expectancy. To help put some meaningful sequence into the process,
please study Figure 18.2, the continuum of actualization: the possible
dream. To aid in this study, ask yourself these seven questions:
1.
What would you ideally most like to be?
2. What would you ideally most like to do? (It is important that
human being should precede human doing.)
3. What kind of experiences help you feel more complete? (This is
symbiosis.)
4. What kind of relationships are most helpful in making you feel
multiplied, compounded, increased? (This is synergy.)
5. In what kind of situations do you most want and tend to share
yourself?
6.
In what kind of circumstances can you most vulnerably let others
in and let you out?
7. What kind of happenings best help you feel a sense of exceeding
yourself?
The tough stuff of possible dreams must be fashioned and crafted out
of reality. And reality starts with asking, listening, and hearing. The
formula looks like this:
Asking, + Perceiving, Guided
listening, believing, and
and
and
fueled by
hearing
becoming
Expectations, = The
strengths
Possible
discovery, and Dream
an action plan
What you imagine is what will transpire. What you believe is what
you will achieve.
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Figure 18.2. Continuum of actualization: The possible dream.
Challenge No. 3: Goals
"Set goals" may be the most frequently chanted dictum of all success
experts. The problem is, however, that all too few people know how to
go about it.
The entire cybernetic circle (Figure 18.1) has been carefully crafted to
provide these steps. Meaningful, stimulating goals must be preceded
and nourished by a dream. This gives goals a being flavor rather than
a self-defeating focus on activities or doing. Having a dream also
means that goals will be focused on aspirations beyond your
immediate knowledge and skill level, thus providing stretch. Consider
these areas for goal setting:
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Economic, social, political, spiritual
Physical, mental, emotional
Personal, occupational
Goals should be achievable and attainable in order to satisfy clearly
charted expectives. It is important, however, that your overall dream
provide a continuous need to improve and grow.
My own dream has evolved from years of challenge, joy, difficulties,
failures, and triumphs. You will note that it is stated in such a way that
it cannot ever be fully accomplished: "I will make the lives of others
richer by the richness of my own."
I must point out that goal setting doesn't consist only of the great and
the noble. I think of R.G., an intellectually gifted and highly educated
man. When he was promoted to a new position in his company, he
talked much about programs, products, and practices to "help the
needy in the thirdand fourthworlds." There was no question about the
importance of this altruistic goal. However, he reflected so much on
these noble purposes that he neglected the need for effective shortrange projects like cost control, budget development, and skills
training for his staff. He failed to meet his commitments to his
employer and was eventually asked to leave the corporation.
Challenge No. 4: Action Plan
Over the years I have heard so many people say, "I want to be . . ." or
"I want to do . . ."and that's about all that happens. Wanting, after all,
doesn't really accomplish anything. The important thing is to decide to
make a decision. Only then can we move from good intent into a plan
of action that yields results.
In the action plan for expective living shown in Figure 15.2 we begin
an orderly process of moving from a dream-inspired goal to specific
action steps for achievement. For instance, your key result area here
might well be a restatement of your goal. If your objective is to make
your life contributing, caring, and rich, your major goal might be to
obtain a certain type of job or position, and your key result area might
be to gain additional skills, certification, or education.
Number the action steps sequentially and list them in descending
vertical order in the "Action Step" column. Carefully think through
each step across the page horizontally to the right, and be sure to enter
all the components of the complete plan.
One of the major benefits of this process is the disciplined thinking,
with accompanying clarity of purpose, that flows out of it. Please
don't just
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glance at this format and conclude it's a fine thing for someone else to
do. Think through and complete your own private plan right now.
The CEOs of many small entrepreneurial organizations, in particular,
have found this to be a useful point of departure into more
sophisticated strategic plans. Action is at the core of all achievement.
Challenge No. 5: Standards
As your action plan actually begins to happen, it is crucial that you
have some objective criteria, some standards, to guide you so that you
know at all times just how you are doing. Standards should be
specific, measurable, practical, attainable; they should have a targeted
attainment date and state an end result.
Challenge No. 6: Timetable
Note that this step is built right into your standards. Committing
yourself to a growth-producing timetable can be very healthy, because
you are charting and carrying out self-generated expectives rather than
simply responding to directives laid on you by someone else.
Challenge No. 7: Work and Discipline
The common (and commonly misunderstood) phrase ''Perception is
reality'' is useful here in connection with two overworked and
underunder-stood words: work and discipline. The way we feel about
these two concepts is a direct product of how we perceive their
meaning.
Does work mean "keeping a stiff upper lip" and making an intrepid
pledge to work hard? Does discipline mean "facing up" to a difficult
task? And does any of that sound inviting, energizing, stimulating?
Does the thought free you up, make your heart sing? I doubt it.
Remember, we become what we think and we become what we say. It
is crucial, then, that we examine the real meaning of work and
discipline in terms of their potential for growth, joy, and fulfillment.
The most successful people are often thought of as "hard" workers,
but this is not true at all. The results they have achieved are indeed
enormous, but this is not because of rigid commitment or obsessive
approach to work. They enjoy work itself. All the great achievers see
work as a privilege, an opportunity, a gift.
Discipline is defined as "training which builds, molds and
strengthens." This is why it cannot be separated from a zestful concept
of work and precisely why it has little relationship to the rigid, morose
ideas described earlier. Discipline and its expression, work, can
prevail only if nourished by a transcendent goal and by a viable faith
in yourself and those around you. Thus your perception of work and
discipline is your personal reality.
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Challenge No. 8: Faith
Faith is an integral part of the kind of value system that enables us to
deliver a full payload of happiness, productivity, and actualization.
The interrelationship of faith to the other fundamental needs can be
shown in this formula:
Faith + Hope + Love + Gratitude = Significance
Faith is incomplete without hope, love, and gratitude. Love is
incomplete without faith and hope. Hope is incomplete without faith
and love. Above all, faith without passion is like soda water without
the sparkle. Without these renewing feelings of faith, hope, love, and
gratitude, our behavior on the job, in the home, and in the community
can be marred by insecurity, defensiveness, cynicism, and other
feelings that corrode our possibilities.
The sheer practicality of faith on a deep and pervasive level is
enormous. Faith and belief, after all, mean the same. And there is
practically no limit to what you and I can do if our belief in ourselves,
our fellow person, and our own perception of a higher power are
strong and constant. In short, faith and success as a total person, a
significant person, are totally synonymous.
Challenge No. 9: Hope
I believe hope is the universal nourishment of the human being, and
expectations are steps on the pathway of hope. When we get out of
bed in the morning, without hope there would be no reason to do
anything at all. With ample hope we bring the dream, goals, action
plan, timetable, and standards into functional operation.
Challenge No. 10: Love
Socrates, that old master of expective, tough-minded discourse, said it
like this: "Human nature will not easily find a helper better than love."
Perhaps the greatest single breakthrough in the enrichment of the
human condition will be the widespread realization that love, fueled
and completed by faith and hope and synergized by gratitude, is the
most practical thing in the world. We are now in the Age of the Mind
and all we do that is practical is a product of the mind. The finest
nutrient for the mind is love.
Challenge No. 11: Gratitude
Do you have an "attitude of gratitude"? Or do you have "hardening of
the attitudes"? You can't have a full measure of both. They cannot
coexist.
Hardening of the attitudes may very likely be the most insidious and
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pervasive disease of humankind since the beginning of civilization.
Such rigidity has been the root cause of socially and psychologically
disintegrating behavior, manifested in a broad spectrum of illnesses,
war, crime, and the trillions of petty thoughts and actions that have
stultified people and taken the rich bloom from life's possibilities.
I'm not talking about gratitude as an occasional action. I'm talking
about a continuous, ongoing process of being or experiencing. At the
very least, the "act" of gratitude requires that we summon up an
awareness of positives, of good realities, sensed as well as seen. As
we gain skill in being and staying aware of these good feelings and
experiences, the finest kind of mental nourishment can evolve.
The converse, of course, is true. When our minds are not fed a diet of
gratitude, they become breeding places for the darker side of
ourselves.
Please examine the following exercise thoughtfully and complete each
portion. In each area, replace the negative feeling with a positive. For
each one, actually write down something you feel grateful for. I
realize this is not easy. It requires most of us to reverse the
conditioning of a lifetime. If you care enough to find the "possibility
fragments" in each of these situations, real growth can begin.
Negative Feeling
Positives Perceived
Alienation from ____________________________
loved ones
Despair
____________________________
Valuelessness ____________________________
Boredom
____________________________
Meaninglessness____________________________
Hopelessness, ____________________________
defeat
Dryness,
staleness
____________________________
Gratitude is the essence that can multiply the power of faith, hope, and
love. Try it. You'll like it!
Challenge No. 12: Wonder
The sense of wonder is developed through a positive outlook on life.
It is a full-time, lifelong quest that persists in seeking out the wonder,
the beauty-enhancing qualities of people, events, and things.
Perhaps this definition of wonder may be useful to you: "To sense, to
reach, to hunger and thirst for further assurance of the possibilities in
all things. This is the enhancement of a sense of wonder."
Can you think of anything more calculated to retain the emotional
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resilience and mental elasticity of youth and creativity than a sense of
wonder? Out of this vital quality flow many very practical things:
greater creativity, innovation, methods improvement, job
performance, customer service, unity of family and fellow team
members.
Challenge No. 13: Vulnerability
We cannot truly love anyoneourselves or othersunless we let ourselves
be vulnerable. We can sometimes be emotionally hurt in the process,
but if we never let ourselves be open to another personfamily member,
colleague, or friendwe cannot grow as a human being. When we let
ourselves be open with others, we can discover in them good qualities
we never suspected. As a result, we grow stronger and are able to
bounce back from the times when we are rebuffed or hurt by
someone. We become more tough-minded in our vulnerability!
I have often used the phrase "Vulnerability is invincible" and I mean
precisely that. If you find that hard to believe, give me just one
example of significant growth or gain that was not preceded by some
testing, trying, tough circumstance.
A major breakthrough becomes possible when we equate emotional
vulnerability with courage and strength. What happens to a physical
muscle when it encounters no stress or resistance? What happens to a
mental muscle when it encounters no stress or resistance? Do you
begin to see the self-destructiveness of a lifestyle rooted in
defensiveness, safety, and invulnerability?
Can a marathon runner develop toughness and stamina without going
through many long, aching hours of effort? Can any man or woman,
boy or girl, develop social skills, confidence, poise, and grace without
vulnerably engaging in a wide assortment of social activities? Can the
timid become courageous in any endeavor if they live behind a safe
wall of nonconfrontation? Can your team develop unity, synergy, and
esprit de corps without undertaking some tough and stretching
objectivesand winning?
Challenge No. 14: Truth and Beauty
Since we become what we think and say, the nutrients to enrich and
toughen our minds are crucial. No matter how skillfully we develop
and chart our process of planning and goal setting, we can achieve and
sustain the necessary momentum only by thoughts that flow out of
truth and beauty. Since the search for truth and beauty has fueled more
breakthroughs in technology and human understanding than anything
else in history, and since thoughts are the quintessential tools of the
future, the tough-minded leader feeds and develops the capacity to
think in all logical and feasible ways.
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Challenge No. 15: Caring, Sharing, and Forgiving
These are some of the most profound keys to success in life as a
whole. To care, share, and forgive is to live at life's cutting edge. As
we care, we reach out beyond ourselves. Caring suffuses all superior
leadership and full functioning. If we do not care much about others,
we will ultimately not care much about ourselves. When we care, we
become vulnerable. When we do not care, we become invulnerable
and die a little inside.
To share is to express caring tangibly. It is a further expression of
vulnerability, wonder, faith, hope, love, and gratitude. It is the hereand-now, hands-on practical way we help enrich the human condition.
Remember, too, that an excellent and appropriate expectation is one of
the finest things we can share.
Forgiveness is a requisite for happiness and peace of mind, for a
liberated and energizing approach to life. The all-too-rare ability to
forgive is best developed as part of an overall lifestyle. A lifestyle
based on being for-getting sets up a collision course with rigidity.
Actually, we never truly forget; we simply tuck the "forgotten"
feelings into our subconscious. They are still there. In truth, we must
remember in order to forgive. As we then develop a lifestyle that is
based on forgiving we become capable of forgiving.
Challenge No. 16: Asking
The importance and power of asking, of clear expectations, has been
neglected in the literature of effective living and leading. It is the one
act that fuses and focuses all the rest.
Most people are unaware that a question is almost always a stronger
and more effective approach than a declarative, directive, or
commanding statement. Thoughtful, clear, firm, and tough expectives
get better results, and allow the other person to retain self-respect and
dignity. They are "open sesame's," the initiators of real productive
actions. In the future, telling will be accurately perceived as obsolete,
and asking will be understood as a real power instrument.
The power and importance of asking is beautifully illustrated by the
following:
Ask and it will be given you.
Seek and you will find.
Knock and it will open unto you.
It can be tough and zestfuland isn't that what it's all about?
Page 185
LEAD WITH PASSION
In his fine book, Unlimited Power (1986), Anthony Robbins says that
there are seven basic character traits of leaders who consistently
produce positive results:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Passion
Belief
Energy
Strategy
Clear values
Bonding power
Mastery of communication
Of passion, he says:
It's passion that causes Pete Rose to dive head first into second base. It's
passion that causes people to stay up late and get up early. It's passion that
people want in their relationships. Passon gives life power and juice and
meaning. There is no greatness without a passion to be great, whether it's
the aspiration of an athlete or an artist, a scientist, a parent, or a
businessman.1
Passion is indeed powerful stuff and must be used by the pivotal
leader in a disciplined, focused, and mentally tough way. The real
leader of tomorrow is, above all, a thinker who acts with passion.
TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, THE G, FORCES BECKON
The greatest companies in the world, those that continue to provide
opportunities to build financial, mental, social, and spiritual wealth,
were almost invariably launched and fueled by a dream, a macro
vision. Out of that dream evolved the "P" pyramids of reality and the
goals, objectives, action plans, timetables, and accountabilities of the
real world. Progress toward those dreams can often seem faltering and
far from perfect, because all of us are pretty imperfect.
Our great and wonderful opportunity, however, is to chart a course of
the possible dream and dare to keep our sight and senses on it. There
may be setbacks and failures, but we will almost certainly have a
higher level of accomplishment and actualization than if we have no
dream at all.
The sheer practicality of asking and expecting yourself and others to
1. (New York: Simon & Schuster).
Page 186
work harder and smarter in a cause greater than self has been tested
through the centuries.
Will you dare to dream? Will you etch out your personal vision?
Will you dare to articulate high hopes?
Will you dare to put muscle into those dreams?
Will you constantly pursue positive possibilities?
Will you expect the best?
Will you dare to become all you can be?
Will you do it?
Remember, tomorrow will not fail you unless you choose to throw it
away.
It is my sincere hope that a decade from now, thoughtful review and
assessment of American leadership will clearly reveal that:
The corporate cultures and megatrends of the 1980s reflected these
dares and made the necessary investment of time, money, mind, spirit,
and perspiration.
We at last perceived the intrinsic pragmatism, the practicality of
suffusing the total culture with a commitment to the enrichment of the
human condition.
Page 187
APPENDICES
The lessons for the future are clear: vision, innovation, renewal,
quality, commitment, energy, discipline, and personal leadership can
build a great and exciting tomorrow.
The following appendices are included to enhance that message and to
provide further insight into what a tough-minded approach entails:
Appendix A: Situational Assessment GuideFrom Macro to Micro
Appendix B: The Tough-Minded LeaderFive Positive G Forces
Appendix C: Putting It All TogetherThe Positive G-Force Climate
Page 189
APPENDIX A:
Situational Assessment GuideFrom Macro to Micro
The purpose of this assessment guide is to aid the tough-minded
leader in building a future-oriented organization that can move into
the business vanguard and ride the turbulent waves of tomorrow.
These questions have been tested in hundreds of organizations. There
are two parts to the assessment guide, which starts on page 191:
1.
G-Forces Analysis (a macro focus)
2. Are You Harnessing Technology for Optimum Information
Reporting? (a micro focus)
This appendix was carefully designed for a wide diversity of readers. I
have attempted to err on the side of abundance and have sought to
provide
Page 190
some aids for a wide assortment of situations and challenges. The
macro treatment offered in the general management/leadership
analysis was structured to ensure broad and versatile application. The
micro focus on the data processing division was designed in the belief
that since this function is newer and more complex than most, it
requires more specificity and focus.
Page 191
G-FORCES ANALYSIS
POLICIES
Yes No N/A
1. Are policies clearly defined and written out in a manual?
_________
2. Do they accurately reflect the philosophy and grand design _________
of the company?
PLANNING
1. Have company objectives and standards been thoroughly
defined for
a. Productivity?
_________
b. Innovation?
_________
c. Physical and financial resources?
_________
d. Marketing?
_________
e. Manager performance and development?
_________
f. Worker performance and attitude?
_________
g. Public responsibility?
_________
h. Profitability?
_________
2. Have personnel evaluation performance techniques (PERT) _________
or critical path methods (CPM) been used to good advantage?
3. Are the following steps being taken with a view to profit
maximization?
a. Study of all unusual expenditures and all changes and
_________
additions in product, policy, methods, systems, and
equipment from the perspective of the long-term as well as
the short-term effect on the company.
b. Continuous, organized effort to improve quality and
reduce costs as well. (It is necessary for such effort to be
_________
redoubled when the company is most prosperous and its
operations are most profitable.)
c. Continuous development of all products and services, and _________
of inspection standards, to accelerate improvements.
d. Continuous simplification and improvement of existing
philosophies, policies, methods, and systems.
_________
Page 192
Yes No N/A
e. Installation of fundamentally new systems, methods, and
mechanizations wherever needed.
_________
f. Continuous fundamental research on all phases of the
company's products and related problems.
_________
g. Development of new products and methods of merchandising _________
and distribution, as indicated by market requirements and overall
profit value to the company.
h. Market investigation of the acceptability or non-acceptability of _________
the company's products and methods of merchandising and
distribution.
i. Routine, scheduled visits to other plants in both related and
unrelated industries to examine and evaluate their policies,
equipment, methods, and systems with a view to adaptation and
application to the company.
_________
j. Encouragement for executives and other team members to take _________
an active part in trade and civic organizations.
k. Provision of adequate capital for current and future plans.
_________
4. Are business game and simulation techniques used?
_________
How?
_______________________________________________________
OPERATIONS
_________
1. Procurement.
Are all materials purchased by competitive bid in accordance with
specifications, in quantities requisitioned by production control (if
applicable)?
_________
2. Production control and scheduling.
Is production completely planned and scheduled in accordance
with marketing requirements and manufacturing facilities?
_________
3. Plant engineering.
Is plant location determined by studies of material and labor supply _________
and market locations?
Are plant facilities arranged in accordance with production
methods and processes?
_________
4. Tool engineering.
Are tools developed, designed, and tested to yield the lowest
feasible manufacturing cost for each product?
_________
Page 193
Yes No N/A
5. Manufacturing.
Are high-quality, low-cost products the rule?
How is this determined?____
Are modern methods of plant layout used?
Which ones?
__________________________________________________
What is the proportion of direct labor to indirect labor?
__________________
How much production is presently scrap?
____________________________
Is full computer-integrated manufacturing targeted?
How measured?
_______________________________________________
Are schedules met?
How far in advance are they planned?
_______________________________
Are methods improvements attempted?
Check method used:
a. Flow process charts
b. Layout and flow diagrams
c. Work distribution analysis
d. Time and motion studies
e. Other______________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
6. Quality control.
_________
Is quality control a separate function?
_________
Is quality control used as an aid to sales and manufacturing?
How?
________________________________________________________________
Are deviations from quality specifications permitted during periods
of peak delivery requirements?
_________
Has quality control improved the design of products and processes?
How?
________________________________________________________________
Have possible applications of statistical quality control been
studied?
_________
7. Value analysis assurance.
Are any or all of the foregoing functions being analyzed 100% in
terms of value contribution?
_________
8. Product/service analysis.
Have the specific product lines or services been determined which
will yield the greatest return for the resources expended?
Do you gather and chart the following sales data?
a. Sales by product line (last five years)
b. Gross profit by product line (last five years)
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
Page 194
Yes No N/A
c.Share of market by product line (last five years)
_________
d. Total market by product line
_________
Do you gather and chart the following distribution data?
_________
a. Sales and gross profit by channel of distribution (last five
years)
_________
b. Sales and gross profit by customer (Pareto analysis should
show that about 20% of customers account for 80% of
sales).
_________
Do you analyze the allocation of the company's resources
with respect to its sources of greatest profit?
_________
Do you identify the transactions that generate costs and
measure their variability by product line?
_________
For example:
_________
a. Number of sales orders processed
_________
b. Number of factory orders issued
_________
c. Number of invoices sent out
_________
GENERAL CONTROL
_________
1. Is there a system of standard costs?
_________
2. Does it reflect all variances between standard and actual
costs?
_________
3. Are variances from standard performance supplied currently
to management?
_________
4. Are there unnecessary accounting records?
Has this been analyzed recently?
_________
_________
5. Are all control records integrated?
_________
6. Are estimates for product pricing based on standard costs? _________
7. Is provision made for management to keep currently
informed on the effect of sales mixture and product selling
prices on total company profits?
_________
8. Are breakeven graphics used by each major department to
reflect the effect of additional volume cost and profit?
_________
9. Are there budgetary controls?
_________
10. Is there an adequate system of reports on the performance
of all departments?
_________
11. Is there a system of commitments?
_________
12. Are operative research administrative procedures, records,
forms, and reports designed to produce re_________
Page 195
Yes No
quired information at lowest cost? Give examples:
______
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
13. Are accounting data supplied promptly, in the form best adapted to use
by management?
Is modern accounting equipment used?
______
14. Are perpetual inventories and stock control maintained?
______
15. For what length of time are forecasts prepared?
______
16. Are controls too few?
Or are they too numerous?
______
______
17. Are controls understood?
______
18. Are controls dynamic instruments for profit maximization?
______
19. Are key decisions made by accessing computerized strengths banks?
______
______
HUMAN RELATIONS
1. What are people doing to each other?
________________________________
2. What are people doing for each other?
_______________________________
3. Do members believe in the purpose of the organization?
______
4. Do they believe in their leadership?
______
5. Do they believe in each other?
______
6. Do they communicate and participate with each other effectively?
______
7. Do they feel free to express their views?
______
8. Do they believe in the company?
______
9. Is the executive group cohesive?
______
10 Who helps whom?____
______
11. Who goes to whom?____
______
12. Which executives appear to be only partially accepted?
______
____________________________________________________________
Why?_______________________________________________________
13. What kinds of personal adjustment problems are there?
__________________
______
14. Are ''bosses" too busy to see their people?
15. Are "subordinates" afraid of their "bosses"?
______
16. What kinds of friction are there?
______
___________________________________
Why?_______________________________________________________
Page 196
ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE
Yes No N/A
1. Does it work effectively?
By what yardsticks?
____________________________________________
_________
2. Does the informal organization work against the for-mal
organization?
How?
________________________________________________________________
3. What kind of informal subgroups or cliques have been formed?
_____________
4. What marked splits are there between various levels of
management or between management and employees?
______________________________________
5. What is the social hierarchy?
_______________________________________
What are the status symbols?
_____________________________________
6. Do people understand and accept the organization structure, line
of command, and delegation of authority and responsibility?
_________
7. Do individuals have an opportunity to use their initiative and
demonstrate their ability to grow?
_________
8. How accurately do formal job descriptions, organization charts,
or performance standards reflect the jobs of executives as they
themselves describe them?
_________
9. Is the organization structure simple and flexible?
Or is it inflexible and complex?
_________
_________
10. Are subordinate units relatively self-sufficient?
_________
11. Have levels of supervision been kept to a minimum?
_________
12. Has the number of specialized activities been kept to a
minimum?
_________
13. Are all executive positions, including first-line positions, truly
management positions?
_________
14. In moving up, have executives taken important parts of their old
duties with them?
_________
15. Are waste effort and waste motion common?
Where?
______________________________________________________ _________
16. Can key decisions be made at relatively low levels?
_________
17. Are strengths being deployed logically at all levels?
_________
MANAGEMENT EFFECTIVENESS
1. Is there any evidence of in-depth planning?
What kind?
___________________________________________________
_________
2. Do executives direct, delegate, and coordinate effectively?
_________
Page 197
Yes No
3. Do they initiate effective action and work with others cooperatively?
______
4. Are they committed to the development of people?
______
5. Do people know where they stand with their super-visors?
______
6. Do executives tend to procrastinate over critical decisions?
Why?_______________________________________________________
What is the decision-making process?
_______________________________
______
7. Is the organization drifting? Are its energies fragmented?
______
8. Is the leadership process autocratic?
______
9. Are any executives concerned about working relationships among their
subordinates
Why?_______________________________________________________ ______
10. Is there any evidence that executives are concerned about selfdevelopment?
What evidence?_____________________________________________________
11. How do subordinate executives view superior executives?
______
12. Do all team members feel empowered to innovate?
______
EFFICIENCY OF WORK METHODS
______
1. Are executives methods conscious and economy minded?
______
2. Are standard operating procedures disorganized?
Is their purpose understood?
______
______
3. Are written instructions meticulous and thorough?
______
4. Do written instructions appear to conform to present methods?
______
5. Have jobs been simplified to the point where people can no longer have
any real interest in their work?
______
6. What areas appear to be most suited for methods improvement?
____________________________________________________________
7. Can work layout be improved?
______
8. Do people show any evidence of being conscious of or interested in
improving their work?
______
9. Is PERT, CPM, or value analysis being used?
______
10. Is the relationship of procedures to objectives understood?
______
Page 198
QUALITY OF PERSONNEL PRACTICES
Yes No N/A
1. How are individual executives and employees selected?
___________________
What criteria are used?
__________________________________________
2. Has the selection procedure been formalized in writing?
_________
3. Are tests used?
Are these current and appropriate?
_________
_________
4. What provision is there for training and development?
_________
5. What is the basis for promotion?____
6. Do pay rates correspond to levels of work?
_________
7. Have salary ranges been developed on the basis of result
rather than activity factors?
_________
8. Are all employees kept informed about company matters?
Do they feel they are an integral part of the company?
_________
_________
9. How do people feel about their jobs?
_________________________________
10. Are they, generally speaking, in the right jobs?
_________
11. Have supervisors and executives been selected for their
leadership ability?
_________
12. Are personnel policies continually reviewed for pertinence
and relevancy?
_________
13. Are they incorporated in manuals and distributed?
_________
14. Is the incompetent person kept on the job?
Or have steps been taken to eliminate him or her?
_________
_________
15. Is there a program of job evaluation?
Is it achievement or activity oriented?
_______________________________
_________
16. How are staff people used?
_______________________________________
17. Are staff and line functions discernibly different?
_________
18. Do morale and discipline seem satisfactory?
Is this reflected in the company's safety records?
_________
_________
UNION-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS
1. What is the attitude toward the contract?
_____________________________
2. What period of time is covered by the contract?
________________________
3. How are relationships with the union representatives?
____________________
4. Are union rules being followed in spirit as well as word?
Are the rules understood?
_________
_________
Page 199
Yes No N/A
5. Is there any evidence of insincere practices designed to
undermine the union's position?
_________
6. Do employees view the union as their protector?
_________
7. Is there cooperation with, rather than appeasement of, the
union?
_________
8. Is there codetermination?
_________
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
1. Do current directors have a grasp of company problems?
_________
2. Are they a sound blend of broad-gauge and specialized
people?
_________
3. What are their backgrounds?
_______________________________________
4. Are they identified strongly with the company?
_________
5. How are directors compensated?
____________________________________
6. Is emphasis on:
a. Policy determination?_______%
b. Future planning?_______%
c. Current operational problems?_______%
d. External conditions?_______%
e. Internal conditions?_______%
f. Profit planning?_______%
g. Innovation and change?_______%
h. Internationalization?_______%
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
7. Is there:
a. An audit committee?
b. A compensation committee?
_________
_________
c. A nominating committee?
d. An executive committee?
e. An innovation committee?
_________
_________
_________
GENERAL ADMINISTRATION
_________
1. Are all instructions channeled through a precisely defined
organizational structure?
_________
Or are they given directly to those selected to achieve them? _________
2. Are committees named only for specific purposes and kept
small?
_________
Do they meet promptly at regular intervals with additional
meetings only as required?
_________
3. Does each major department head hold staff meetings at
least once in three weeks?
_________
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Yes No N/A
4. Are all decisions involving more than one person or more _________
than one division or department the result of consultation with
all necessary persons?
5. Are adequate notes kept of all group discussions and
decisions?
_________
Are they issued to all appropriate participants?
_________
6. Does every executive give full consideration to the ideas of _________
superiors, peers, and subordinates?
7. Are the ideas of all employees freely exchanged for the
overall benefit of the company?
_________
Is there a suggestion or profit improvement plan?
_________
8. Do all executives have, at all times, a clear under-standing
and a complete listing of the company's general and specific
objectives and policies, as well as the objectives and policies
that apply to their own division or department?
_________
9. Do all executives prepare a list of their duties and
_________
responsibilities for their superior and require similar lists from
those reporting to them?
Do both they and their subordinates know the results required _________
of them?
10. Are simple written instructions given where feasible?
_________
11. Have all supervisors learned to organize and schedule their _________
work?
12. Do all executives put the company's welfare above their
_________
own immediate personal interests?<CR>How do they manifest
this?____
13. Do all executives carefully choose and thoroughly train a
_________
competent understudy?
14. Do all executives delegate authority to their team, place
responsibility upon them, and define their accountability for
results wherever possible?
_________
15. Do all executives deliberately arrange to provide
_________
themselves with ample time for thought, study, and profitable
planning for the future?
16. Do all executives encourage their team to develop initiative _________
and use their own judgment to the greatest practical degree?
17. Are team members so competent that it is unnecessary, and _________
hence undesirable, for their superiors to check anything but
end results?
Page 201
Yes No
18. Are individuals' accomplishments recognized and appreciated?
______
19. Are new positions filled and promotions made from within wherever
possible?
______
20. Are promotions made in accordance with ability, loyalty, cooperation,
and total contribution to the company?
______
21. Is there continuous analysis by division and department heads to
eliminate unnecessary functions, jobs, procedures, paperwork, reports,
and duplication of effort?
______
22. Are all established procedures carefully audited by division and
department heads at stated intervals to prevent deterioration or lapse?
Are they periodically reexamined for possible improvement?
______
______
23. Are the company's policies, aims, and plans explained to all
executives and supervisors?
______
24. Are there oversensitive prima donnas, "big wheels," agitators,
parasites?
How are they manifested?
_______________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
25. Are there incentives for every employee? (This in-eludes department
heads and all subexecutives, as well as technical and clerical personnel.) ______
26. Do sound methods of performance measurement exist?
______
Is the performance of every employee appraised periodically? Is there
individual counseling with a view to merit increases (according to
schedules adopted by the company) or upgrading whenever
appropriate?
______
27. Do executives and other employees speak often and with pride of the
company's products and methods, where praise is merited, to increase the
company's reputation?
______
28. Is the company a stimulating and electrifying place to work?
______
29. Is a sincere and pervasive emphasis on service, quality, and
innovation discernible in all the Ps in the "P" pyramid?
______
30. Is a computerized strengths bank in operation?
______
Page 202
ARE YOU HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY FOR OPTIMUM
INFORMATION REPORTING?
COMPUTER NETWORK CENTER CONTROLS
General Considerations
Yes No N/A
1. Is the computer network center under the leadership of a
tough-minded leader?
_________
2. Are the computer network center's long-range plans focused
on meeting the company's objective?
_________
3. Do you have strategic computer plans for handling the
company's future growth?
_________
4. Do you employ current hardware and software in its
computer operations?
_________
5. Do you exert the necessary leadership to get the desired
level of data processing services?
_________
6. Do you motivate personnel to do an effective job in
providing the desired level of data processing services?
_________
7. Do you exercise the necessary control over operations so
that fraud, theft, and inaccuracies of data processing methods
and procedures can be detected?
_________
8. Do you use the appropriate security measures to minimize
fraud, theft, and inaccuracies?
_________
Organizational Considerations
1. Is the computer network center operating as a separate unit
without direct integration into company operations?
_________
2. Is the computer network center centrally located for best
use?
3. Are the following personnel groups, located within the
_________
computer department, organizationally and physically separate
from one another:
a. Computer operators?
_________
b. System analysis and programmers?
_________
c. Computer supervisory personnel, and auditors?
_________
Are all computer programmers and operators frequently
transferred to different equipment and programs?
_________
Page 203
Procedures and Methods
Yes No N/A
1. Are there established written procedures for all data
processing activities outside the computer center?
_________
2. Is there standardization for system flowcharts and program
flowcharts?
_________
3. Are programming techniques standardized within and
monitored by the computer center?
_________
4. Are there established procedures for software and program
testing?
_________
5. Have all standardized procedures been compiled in
appropriate manuals?
_________
6. Is the computer manual current?
_________
7. Are there established procedures for making program and
networking changes?
_________
8. Are all program changes immediately documented,
including the reason for the change?
_________
9. Is computer-integrated manufacturing a myth or a reality?
_________
INPUT CONTROLS
General Considerations
1. Does electronic data processing (EDP) management require
that input controls be made an integral part of its information
system?
_________
2. Are newer input controls instituted by EDP management to
reflect changing conditions of input methods and procedures,
such as from a batch processing mode to an interactive mode? _________
3. Does EDP management require that input start with the first
input processing methods and procedures?
_________
4. Are input controls reviewed periodically by an in-dependent
third party (consultants or auditors) to make sure that they
_________
serve the purpose for which they were intended?
Verification Methods
1. Are all important data fields verified to ensure accuracy of
input information?
_________
2. Is the degree of accuracy adequate?
_________
Page 204
Yes No N/A
3. If conversion equipment and data transmission equipment
are used to convert or transmit data (in-put), is adequate
verification being performed?
_________
Input Control Totals
1. Are all input documents prenumbered and accounted for by
an independent count so that all transactions received are
processed?
_________
2. Is responsibility fixed for errors on input documents so that
corrective action can be taken?
_________
3. Are input-error corrective methods properly con-trolled to
ensure that actual correction and reentry into the system is
accomplished?
_________
PROGRAMMED CONTROLS
General Considerations
1. Are programmed controls required by DP management?
_________
2. Are programmed controls fully understood and implemented
by the programming staff?
_________
3. Are programming controls reviewed periodically by an
independent third party, i.e., consultants or auditors, to make
sure that they service the purpose for which they were
intended?
_________
Validation Checks and Tests
1. Is sequence checking used to verify the sorted input data?
_________
2. Are data fields checked for correct type of data: alpha,
numeric, zero, blank, and special characters?
_________
3. Do code numbers, such as account number and inventory
number, make use of the self-checking digit techniques?
_________
4. Are limit or reasonableness tests used where needed?
_________
5. Do programs test input data for valid costs, and are printouts
or halts provided when invalid codes are detected?
_________
Page 205
Yes No N/A
6. Do programs make use of checkpoints when processing
must be restarted after its initial start?
_________
7. Do computer loading routines include tests that verify the
successful loading of a computer program?
_________
Computer Control Totals
1. Do computer programs provide continuance of input
control?
_________
2. Are the following control techniques used in the various
computer programs:
a. Balancing totals?
b. Cross-footing balance checks?
c. Zero balancing?
d. Proof figures?
e. Other?
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
3. Are the completeness and accuracy of the various files
checked during processing?
_________
4. Are changes in program rate tables and other data initiated
in writing and under the control of authorized personnel?
_________
5. Are program changes retained for audit?
_________
6. Is there an online procedure for detecting and skipping bad
portions of magnetic tape?
_________
7. Are all halts, excluding end-of-job, recorded and retained
for audit?
_________
Error Routines
1. Is there an adequate program procedure for identifying,
correcting, and reprocessing errors?
2. Are all instructions to computer operators set forth in
_________
writing for effective processing control as well as handling of
_________
error conditions?
3. Are console operators cautioned not to accept oral
instructions and not to contact programmers directly when
errors are found?
_________
OUTPUT CONTROLS
General Considerations
1. Are output controls specified by EDP management?
_________
Page 206
Yes No N/A
2. Are newer output controls instituted by EDP management to
reflect conditions of output methods and procedures, such as
from a batch processing mode to an interactive processing
mode?
_________
3. Does EDP management require that output controls be made
an integral part of its information systems?
_________
Output Control Totals
1. Can output data be compared with predetermined totals?
_________
2. Are provisions made within the information system to
reconstruct files in the event that the current files are damaged
or destroyed?
_________
3. Are corresponding transactions being stored in reprocessible
form for emergency operations?
_________
Control by Exception
1. Are all exception items immediately and properly
investigated?
_________
2. Is corrective action undertaken for all exception items?
_________
3. Is there a periodic verification of master file balances, such
as inventory and payroll, to correct erroneous data and check
for irregularities?
_________
Control Over Operator Intervention
1. Are procedures in force that prevent access of operators and
other unauthorized personnel to programs for perpetuating
fraud?
_________
2. Are word processor-consoled printouts controlled and
reviewed by designated personnel, such as internal auditors?
3. Is effective control exercised over the operator's adherence
_________
to processing procedures?
_________
INTERACTIVE CONTROLS
General Considerations
1. Are interactive controls required by EDP management?
_________
2. Are interactive controls fully understood and implemented
by the systems staff?
_________
Page 207
Online Processing Controls
Yes No N/A
1. When input/output terminals are used for data transmission,
are the following control techniques used:
a. Message identification (identifies each message received
by the computer)?
_________
b. Message transmission control (assures that all messages
transmitted are actually received)?
_________
c. Message accuracy check?
_________
2. Is there adequate control over terminals in case it is
necessary to retransmit data?
_________
3. Is access to confidential information properly con-trolled?
_________
Diagnostic Controls
1. Are diagnostic programs, in conjunction with a supervisory
program, used to detect and isolate error conditions for proper
corrective action?
_________
2. Are there sufficient online programmed controls to handle
the following conditions?
a. Restart the program in question.
b. Reexecute the faulty instruction.
c. Switch control to an error routine.
d. Shut down part of the system.
e. Halt the system.
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
3. Are checkpoint records developed as processing occurs, to
facilitate a restart?
_________
SECURITY CONTROLS
General Considerations
1. Are security controls required by EDP management?
_________
2. Are security controls fully understood and implemented by
the systems staff?
_________
Specific Considerations
1. Are master files stored under conditions that provide
reasonable protection against damage or destruction?
_________
2. Is there a schedule of all current computer programs that
includes an identification number, date, and description?
_________
Page 208
Yes No N/A
3. Are all computer programs properly documented?
_________
4. Are computer programs and supporting materials
maintained in the records library and issued to persons with
written authorization?
_________
5. Are adequate daily equipment logs being properly
maintained?
_________
6. Are adequate daily equipment logs being reviewed for
irregularities?
_________
7. Is entrance to the computer room limited to authorized
personnel?
_________
8. Are there procedures for preventing premature reuse of
magnetic tapes and disks?
_________
9. Are there adequate controls to prevent premature erasures of
data from magnetic tapes and disks?
_________
10. Is there an established policy for retiring magnetic tape
reels with excessive read or write errors?
_________
11. Is the computer system serviced by qualified service
engineers on a regular basis?
_________
12. Are manufacturers' temperature and humidity requirements
maintained?
_________
Finally, are all computer resources subjected to:
Constant scrutiny?
Constant change?
Constant improvement?
_________
_________
_________
Page 209
APPENDIX B:
The Tough-Minded LeaderFive Positive G Forces
1. A tough-minded leader provides transcendent or macro vision
and magnetic lift and pull, like a compass. A tough-minded leader
provides purpose and direction.
2. A tough-minded leader provides a crystal-clear focus of all
strengths in the organization. Knowing that our strengths are our
tools, a tough-minded leader expects and reinforces the best.
3. A tough-minded leader is committed to people, service,
innovation, and quality. A leader believes this commitment is
liberating and enriching to all.
4. A tough-minded leader leads by example that is focused,
stretching, and positive. A leader is motive led and value fed.
Page 210
5. A tough-minded leader ensures that all compensation is related
to positive performance and expects total integrity. A leader is guided
in all decisions by these two components.
The problem is not the competitor.
The problem, the challenge, is the person in the mirror. And
the solution is the person in the mirror.
Page 211
APPENDIX C:
Putting It All TogetherThe Positive G-Force Climate
Page 212
Descriptions of Phases
Descriptions of Implementation of Phases
PHASE 1:
Study of Present Climate
Vision/dreams
Quality and service
Strengths assessment
Strengths focus
Spirit
Renewal forces needed
Maturity of current G forces
Survey questionnaire
Diagnostic interviews
PHILOSOPHY (Principles)
Transcendent vision
Mission statement
Macro-goals and focus
Guide principles
Transcendent lift and pull
Expective and positive G forces
PHASE 2:
POLICIES AND PROCEDURES
Development of Corporate
Policy
Corporate compass
Analyze and evaluate
Lift and pull
Sequence and order
Guide and reassure
Precision and purpose
Fuse and focus motive-action Clarity and stretch
Provide parameters
Reflects positive Gs throughout
Strategic
Logistics
Pervasive empowerment
PHASE 3:
Development of Objectives
Strategic planning
Leadership
Service
Quality
Growth
Innovation and human
optimization
Profit
PROGRAMS
Leadership and management
Selling and service
Possibility teams
Team building
Customer care
Communication methods and pratrices
Motivation methods and practices
Other developmental sessions, such as counseling,
mentoring
Page 213
PHASE 4:
PROCESSES AND PROJECTS
Development of Value-added
Organization andDefinitive position descriptions
Design
Organization schema
Planning,
Strength-based performance appraisals
development, Computerized strength banks
and design
New strength deployment tactics
Recruiting
Organization
Staffing
Research
Organizational manual
Analysis
Evaluation
Synthesis
Strengths
deployment
Training and
implementation
PHASE 5:
Performance
Planning and
Results
Requirements
Performance
standards
Performancebased
compensation
Accountability
Communication
Tactical and
action plans
PRACTICES
Strength-based performance appraisals
Reverse all G forces
Reflect reversals in a pervasive manner throughout
PHASE 6:
ALL Ps PERVASIVELY
Organizational
Development
Coordinate
Build new positive G forces into all communication,
Coach and train conversations, electronic mail, meeting agendas, memoranda,
Integrate value
system
Execute
Delegate
Action plans
Make policy
decisions
Accountability
Strengths
building
etc.
All team members in the enterprise must develop pride and
unity in and with the company, must feel involvement and
commitment to philosophy, goals, and objectives of the
business.
PHASE 7:
PURPOSE/PROFIT
Control
Management
Economic, social, political, and spiritual
information
Research, teach, and generate all four dimensions of free
system
enterprise.
People primacy Constantly seek new ways to better practice positive G-force
Calibrate
leadership.
progress
Optimum
computerization
Future focused
and user friendly
Lift and pull
Page 215
GLOSSARY OF TOUGH-MINDED TERMS
accountability The ''ability to account" for the extent to which a
commitment is met.
action plan A sequenced and prioritized chronology of intent,
commitment, and tactics: what one is going to get done and some of
the key activities involved.
activity Motion toward a clearly targeted result, something one does,
as contrasted with something one gets done (result).
aggressiveness Initiative that is primarily self-serving. Not to be
confused with assertiveness, which uses one's strengths for purpose of
building.
analyze To divide the whole into its component parts (who, what,
where, when, how, why) in order to determine the nature, proportion,
function, and relationship between the parts.
Page 216
appraisal To determine the value and possibilities implicit in a
person's performance and personality at a particular time.
assertiveness The vulnerable exposure of strengths. Since strengths
are all we possess, and thus all we have to assert, vulnerability permits
the full use of these strengths without defensiveness.
builder The CEO who stands tall is, above all, a builder. Committed to
vision, stretch, empowerment, synergy, responsiveness, and
flexibility-toughness of minda builder ensures that all dimensions of
each P in the pyramid are intensely focused on creation, growth, and
building.
candor Applied truth. In the tough-minded lexicon, this involves
openness, vulnerability, awareness of the needs of others, and a
genuine desire to build them.
caring Consistent manifestation of concern for and affirmation of
others. The perception that all people are right until proved wrong and
that each person is a bundle of strengths and possibilities.
climate The temperature of the human environment in which one
finds oneself; the "feel," the "chemistry," often more sensed than
known.
climate for mistakes An environment that calls for and reinforces
constant experimentation, creativity, innovation, and change.
Encourages the practice of "failing forward." Mistakes within reason
are rewarded rather than penalized.
coach To help others develop insights and actions to achieve mutually
understood goals. This pertains particularly to helping one identify,
surface, fuse, and focus one's present and potential strengths.
collaborate Coordination in action. A blend of strengths to produce
positive symbiosis and synergy.
commitment An internalized, then externalized, concentration of
desire and energy focused on various degrees of achievement. An
"integrity of intent."
communication Shared meaning, shared understanding.
compensation Providing or receiving full value, psychological or
financial, for energy expended in accomplishing results.
confront To address openly, honestly, and vulnerably that which needs
to be addressed. The reverse of expedience, obliqueness, deviousness,
or avoidance.
consistency Consonance of unity of thought, word, or deed over a
continuum of time, space, or relationships.
consultive decision making A decision-making process in which the
leader involves team members and secures their best input prior to
making any major decisions. The tough-minded leader places a
premium on asking, listening, and hearing. Thus, when he or she
makes a decision and stresses the logical deployment of strengths,
team members are ex-
Page 217
pected to meet lean, stretching commitments. Clear-cut
accountability is a crucial operational requirement here.
control An end result of interactive processes involving clarity of
expectation and the achievement thereof. Control is not a tool per se.
It is a result of excellence in applying the other concepts in the toughminded leadership system.
coordinate Shared meaning and shared understanding that permit and
require the synchronized effort of appropriate people to achieve
mutually understood goals.
counsel See "coach." They are indivisible.
criticize To evaluate the results of analyses and identify the values or
strengths therein. To build on those strengths in seeking to improve
the situation, person, or thing.
culture The pervasive philosophy, central values, beliefs, attitudes,
and practices of an organization, and the micro elements that make
things happen.
customer-led automated marketing system (CLAMS) A total
operational system fed by imaginatively programmed touch-screen
computers to provide constant and comprehensive customer input as a
basis for on-going evaluation and improvement of the entire "P"
pyramid.
cybernetic (From the Greek word, kybernetes, meaning "helmsman.")
A self-correcting system whose function is perpetuated by a closed
loop or servomechanism.
develop To generate, synthesize, nurture, and ultimately create something better.
dignity The worth, significance, and uniqueness of a person; an
awareness of intrinsic worth. Clear, consistent expectations and a
constant search for and focus on strengths affirm this dignity.
directive Words or actions, felt or implied, that arbitrarily indicate an
action or result desired. Tends to suggest "compression and pushing"
rather than "evoking and stretching" (as in expective).
discipline Training and development that builds, molds, and
strengthens; lean, clean, focused behavior.
dissatisfaction A preoccupation with past failures; a tendency to dwell
on what didn't work. On the contrary, unsatisfaction is a healthy,
hungry desire to change, grow, and move onward and upward.
dream A deeply felt hope of the possible. Dreams lift and move
individuals and organizations to the highest levels of performance.
emotional conflict A blend of emotions needed to ensure that
knowledge or information is transmuted and transmitted into learning.
A gestalt of feelings.
empower To create and foster a relationship in which the other person
or persons understand their significance, possibilities, and strengths.
Peo-
Page 218
ple who are empowered have a clear understanding of their
authority, responsibility, accountability, and valued role in the team,
and they have autonomy that is symbiotic with others.
empathy The imaginative projection of one's consciousness into the
consciousness of another. The ability to put yourself in the other
person's shoes.
evaluate To identify the relative value of a person, place, thing, or
relationship; the values (strengths) revealed by the analysis.
excellence What happens when you give an undertaking your best
shotand know it.
exemplar Leaders whose personas and actions represent the essence
of what they say and expect.
expectation A desire, want, or need communicated in the form of a
clear request. The ultimate gift, it says to others, "I value and
appreciate your possibilities."
expective A more specific statement of expectation; a clear oral or
written request. As contrasted with a directive, it is designed to stretch
rather than to compress, to pull rather than to push.
faith Belief in and commitment to causes, quests, and affirmations
that transcend self-concern.
feedback Information that clearly indicates the progress and corrective
needs of the ongoing project or undertaking.
flexibility and resilience The opposite of rigidity. The living and
committed responsiveness to possibilities, difficulties, and
opportunities.
free enterprise Freedom of individual action to chart and accomplish a
full measure of individual achievementeconomically, politically,
socially, and spiritually; freedom to develop the whole and apply full
talents to stretching work assignments.
gestalt A structure in which the response of a person or an organism to
a situation is a complete whole rather than simply the sum of the parts
or elements; a total configuration of factors.
G forces The figurative pull of gravity. Negative G forces of the past
are passive, self-defeating attitudes, and practices that retard and even
reverse growth and forward movement. Positive G forces of the future
are passionate attitudes and practices that help pull and guide the
leader to move toward the future in the most productive, energetic,
and positively magnetic way. Like a compass, positive G forces guide
and pull.
goal Something one wishes to accomplish. Broader and more timeless
than an objective. Expressed as a desired and targeted happening.
go-giver A positive term replacing the cliché "go-getter"; a toughminded person who knows that one can achieve much more when
major energies are directed toward giving encouragement, knowledge,
Page 219
inspiration, and understanding to others rather than seeking selfaggrandizement only.
grace A special warmth felt and expressed toward all other human
beings; an absence of pettiness and self-concern. A living
manifestation of the belief that a person should devote major energies
to doing something for others and not to others.
gratitude Thoughts, feelings, and actions that reflect and transmit
appreciation and earned praise.
hard Rigid, compressed, repressed, depressed, oppressed, brittle, dead,
weak. The reverse of toughness.
incident file A document in which key episodes (both positive and
negative) are recorded. To be used for developmental coaching and
counseling.
individual In the tough-minded vocabulary, this term means the
opposite of a rebel. Rebels live, talk, and work in terms of what they
are against;
individuals live, talk, and work in terms of what they are for.
innovation Newness in action. Ever-searching, ever-changing
concepts, methods, research, and application.
integrity Strength, reality, authenticity, toughness.
intuitive leadership The demonstrated capacity to take correct actions
without necessarily knowing why. Accurate guesses, whether
educated or merely sensed. A feel, a sense, a sensation in the gut of
what is appropriate. Quick and ready insight.
involvement Joint and shared use of talents to develop, clarify, and
achieve symbiotic relationships and synergistic results.
job description A listing of key result requirements that constitute or
define a job or position.
judge To form subjective conclusions about another. Judgments
project our negative feelings about ourselves into others; they are a
projection of weaknesses. The reverse of evaluate.
key result areas Major areas of an individual position or job. They are
usually determined so that objectives or standards will be established
for all significant responsibilities of the position. Term may also be
used to apply to a major emphasis of an enterprise or project.
kinesics "Body English." The study of body movements, facial
expressions, and so on as ways of communicating.
lead To be in front, figuratively. To lift, guide, expect, empower,
communicate, and achieve synergistic results.
leadership The exercise of a system of expectationsan ever-changing,
ever-dynamic gestalt of interacting mindsdesigned to mobilize and
maximize the most effective use of strengths to achieve objectives.
leadership by expectation Leadership in which a complete and
pervasive
Page 220
system of expectations is established throughout the organization
and is fueled by the logical deployment of strengths. Leadership by
expectation involves the belief that people are the alpha and omega
of all organizational success. Such a leader practices virtually all
the principles and methods in this book.
leadership by renewal The consistent practice of the principles and
methods in this book with primacy given to the belief that all team
members are more productive and actualized when they are reaching,
growing, involved, empowered, and discovering new feelings of
individual significance. It is a tough-minded axiom that a leader must
first become this kind of person in order to provide true leadership by
renewal.
love A feeling of brotherhood and good will toward other people.
Tough-minded leaders express love via a disciplined commitment to
build rather than to destroy, to enhance rather than to diminish, all
associates and team members through every thought, word, and
action. Although it is an ideal, the TML seeks to build this emphasis
on enhancement pervasively throughout the organization's "P"
pyramid.
loyalty A quality or action of steadfastly adhering to one's beliefs in a
person or thing by every thought, word, or action.
management by objectives A management style where, ostensibly, all
decisions and actions are executed for the purpose of achieving and
exceeding clearly defined and agreed-upon objectives.
management process In the tough-minded management lexicon, this
means the following sequence: Research, vision or mission, plan,
organize, coordinate, execute, control.
mission A stretching, guiding, and reinforcing statement of intent and
commitment.
motivation Motive-action; "action to achieve motive." First, motive
(results, objectives, goals) is developed and then action plans are
designed to accomplish them.
negative Any action that involves retreating from the challenge and
discipline required to achieve positive results.
nice guy One who is affected, self-deprecating, insincere, overly
subtle; hence, evasive and untrustworthy. Used in this context to mean
a person who chooses the easier alternative and rationalizes this action
with "nice" cliches. One who retreats from the requirements of
demanding self-discipline.
nurture To provide insights, expectations, reinforcement, asking,
listening, and hearing that grow people.
objective Something one wants to get done. A specific statement of
quality, quantity, and time values.
open listening Truly open "hearing" with heart, mind, and soul. A felt
and expressed desire to truly understand the other person.
Page 221
organization "Organ in action." In business, government, and other
kinds of endeavor, the collective functioning of a group to achieve
mission, goals, and objectives.
organize To blend resources logistically to achieve objectives; to
deploy strengths logically.
passion Intense, focused feelings fed in synchromeshed conjunction
by the value system described in this book.
passive Yielding, quiescent, nonresponsive, with a low level of
reaction. The "bland leading the bland."
performance Discernible and productive actions moving beyond target
or intent and actually fulfilling commitment.
performance standards A baseline level of achievement. Commonly
defined in the literature as "A standard indicates performance is
satisfactory when . . ." Meeting standard performance is the basic
requirement for maintaining a position. Extra rewards should be
bestowed only when the standard is exceeded.
philosophy A body of truths and firm beliefs. Organizationally, it is
the basis for the development of mission, goals, objectives,
organization, expective action plans, and controls.
plan An orderly assortment of actions designed to fulfill a mission or
accomplish a goal or objective. An objective by itself is not a plan; it
is only the basis for one.
positive stress The opposite of negative stress, which causes dissonant
disaster and distress; positive stress is healthy, intensely focused
energy applied to positive goals.
possibility team A dynamic group of people who blend strengths to
discover, recommend, and achieve innovative improvement in all
dimensions of the organization.
power Qualities emanating from the leader that exert compasslike
pull, both subtle and overt. Such qualities provide both direction and
attraction, purpose and pull. Positive, forward-focused influence.
"P" pyramid The pyramidal triangle that presents the following
sequence of Ps: philosophy (principles), policies (programs),
procedures (processes), practices (projects), and profit (purpose).
These Ps represent the complete infrastructure of any organization.
presence A total appearance or impression projected by an individual,
which emanates confidence and effectiveness and inspires the
confidence of others.
purpose An overriding, lifting, stretching end to be attained.
quality The degree of excellence a thing possesses. Also see total
quality.
rebel A person who knows, and is primarily motivated by, what he or
she is against; to know what one is against and be motivated
accordingly. See also individual.
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renewal Innovation and renovation. The process of making fresh,
strong, and good; new physical, mental, and spiritual strength.
renewal organization The type of organization in which all the Ps,
with emphasis on the people, are geared toward the practice of the
contents of this book.
respect Feelings, felt and expressed, that reflect enhanced awareness
of the dignity, worth, and individuality of another person.
responsibility Response-ability, or "ability to respond." Responding
fully to the pledge of a commitment; responding in a manner
consistent with full integrity.
results The final happening. Not to be confused with a measurement
of a result.
self-actualized Focused, activated, and fueled by the entire value
system in this book with particular emphasis on clarity of
expectations, building on strengths, and enhancement and
empowerment of the team. The self-actualized leader lives and works
within the context of a transcendent vision of the possible.
self-confidence The belief that you are significant and good. A
growing awareness of one's own strengths and, often, a heightened
zest for strong, testing, and confrontive challenges.
self-discipline Commitment of selfin diseipleshipto worthwhile
courses of action, of programs of development and fitness. Most
effective when focused on goals that transcend personal gain.
service The ongoing product of a passionate commitment to fulfill the
wants, needs, and possibilities of others.
servo-system A closed-loop cybernetic process that provides for
macro-organizational feedback and responsiveness as well as micro-
individual feedback and responsiveness. Such macro and micro servosystems will make possible the kind of responsiveness to customers
that must shape the volatile leadership wave of tomorrow.
significance The feeling that a person "counts," is real and is
accomplishing good, stretching, and relevant things in life.
social gestalt A dynamic interweaving of individual behavior patterns
that produces group accomplishment greater than the sum of its parts.
sophisticated Artificial, highly complicated, refined; maintaining a
facade that obscures the basic truths of the situation.
strategy A careful plan or method focused on macro goals.
Completed, fulfilled, and sometimes exceeded with the aid of toughminded tacticsmiero-foeused action steps.
strengths The true realities in all things. Conversely, weaknesses are
only what is absent or lacking. Strengths are the only building blocks
in anything, the only resources one can employ in every dimension of
life. The meaning of strength and integrity is the same.
Page 223
strengths bank A computerized data base containing the salient
strengths of all relevant personnel. This bank is accessed regularly to
truly practice the logical deployment of strengths. All major
assignments are made and decisions are conditioned by such
deployment. Since strengths are indeed the only reality in a person,
the strengths bank enables an organization to move forward on the
basis of total reality. Weaknesses are regarded merely as missing
strengths or insufficiently developed strengths.
Stress See positive stress.
stretch A questing, reaching, searching for a better way.
symbiosis A relationship where living or working together provides
and enhances mutual advantage.
synergy Since all that goes up must ultimately converge, synergy is
the magnified impact of a confluence or synthesis of strengths. In
shorthand, 2 + 2 = 5 or more. The whole is greater than the sum of the
parts.
synthesize To combine the values and strengths of the individuals
discovered during an evaluation.
system Dynamic reciprocating aggregate of sequenced actions to
achieve properly determined objectives.
system of values A complete and functionally compatible combination
of essential truths. Values are the subjective interpretation of the
immutable laws of the universe that shape and guide human reactions.
The orderly expression and transfer of tough-minded values into
practices is the essential process involved in building a climate of
productivity.
team A combination of people, or other productive units, working in
dynamic and positive conjunction with each other to produce
synergistic results. A group that shares a common toughness of mind.
theory X A management style described by Douglas McGregor in The
Human Side of Enterprise. It illustrates the reverse of all that is
advocated in this book by stressing the use of organizational rank and
directiveness as one's first expedient.
theory Y Another management style created by Douglas McGregor. It
places a premium on caring about people and empowering them to
give their best efforts to team accomplishment. It is in general
agreement with TML.
theory Z A management style described in William Ouchi's book
Theory Z, it is based on thirteen steps practiced by leading Japanese
companies. This approach derives from numerous applications of
tough-minded management techniques initially introduced to Japanese
businesspeople by Konosuke Matsushita, then chairman of the board
of Matsushita Industries. He has credited Batten, Batten, Hudson &
Swab as the source of these seminal techniques.
Page 224
tomorrow-mindedness An approach in which all the Ps in the
organization are designed and instrumented to anticipate, create, and
innovate to meet the requirements of the future. A tomorrow-minded
leader is responsive rather than reactive.
tool A usable resource or combination of resources to instrument a
desired level of achievement. Something one usually employs directly
to get something done.
total quality Integrity of function and composition, from alpha to
omega.
tough The integrity of a substance, person, place, thing, or feeling.
Characterized by tenacity, resilience, flexibility, durability, and
suppleness.
tough-minded Open, resilient, growing, changing, questing, stretching
quality of mind. Having an infinite capacity for growth and change.
See tough and tough-minded leader.
tough-minded leader The kind of leader who, much like a compass,
provides direction and, figuratively, magnetic pull. The TML "walks
in front of the flock" and exemplifies the system of values and
practices that this book is all about.
trust The feeling that expectations will be met. The implicit belief in
the integrity, or strength, of the potential behavior of another person.
unity Oneness of purpose, focus, communication, and action.
unsatisfaction A healthy and hungry desire for new growth, new
effectiveness, new levels of achievement. The reverse of
dissatisfaction.
value The intrinsic worth (or strength) of anything. See system of
values.
value added A product or service to which has been added features
and benefits to delight the customer.
value system A dynamic, reciprocating, and reinforcing conjunction
of values.
vision A transcendent view of the possible.
visioneering Having vision fed by a synergistic blend of resources
tooled for actual achievement. The term we use to describe the toughminded leader's kit of tools for the future.
vital Bursting with life and positively directed energy.
vulnerable Openness to experiences. Affirmation of belief in the
essential goodness and rightness of life. The absence of defensive,
petty, or suspicious behavior.
warmth Emotion and caring, flowing toward others, that transmits
feelings of affirmation, reassurance, and love. Overt evidence of a
desire to build and give to another, reflected in tone of voice, facial
expression, and the free expression of positive emotion.
"we" feeling This occurs when one particularly enjoys the practice of
giving earned praise to others and when commitment to goals of the
organization transcends personal wants, needs, and problems.
Reflected in speech by use of "we" in favor of "I." The feeling that
one is part of
Page 225
a hard-hitting team that gets results. Ironically, this feeling is
possible only when people feel like individualswith individual
purposes, values, and dignity focused on a common goal.
wisdom The ability or gift of transcendent vision. To see the ''big
picture,'' to visualize the immediate need or problem in proper
perspective. A knowledge of fundamental truths and the ability to use
them in a meaningful developmental and positive way, producing a
course of action that achieves desired results.
yeast A volatile blend of organic substances that creates synergistic
growth. The "good bacteria" are the organizational components
treated in this book. The "bad bacteria" are the components of
directiveness, expedience, rigidity, and other elements of style that
will not meet the requirements of a turbulent tomorrow.
Page 227
THE NEW LEADER'S BOOKSHELF
Literature on the kind of vanguard leadership I'm advocating is still
skimpy, but beginning to grow. Here, as they occurred to me, are a
few high quality viands to begin your leadership banquet:
Memos lot Management, James L. Hayes (New York: AMACOM,
1983)
Rich in basic leadership nutrients. Jim Hayes has to be one of the
most broadly experienced and insightful people in the business. Good
stuff!
Feminine Leadership, Marilyn Loden (New York: Times Books,
1985)
Marilyn Loden has written a courageous, discerning, and seminal
book that breaks new ground. In true tough-minded fashion, this book
focuses on the strengths of women managers rather than on their
weaknesses. It provides stimulating guidance for the woman who
seeks not to emulate masculine models, but to build effectively on
feminine strengths.
Leaders, Warren Bennis & Burt Nanus (New York: Harper & Row,
1985)
Page 228
Provides solid insights for all who aspire to make the transition
from manager to leader.
Effective Managerial Leadership, James J. Cribbin (New York:
AMACOM, 1972)
This venerable text on leadership continues to provide enduring and
highly useful food for thought.
Passion for Excellence, A, Tom Peters and Nancy Austin (New York:
Random House, 1985)
For some real paprika in the leadership stew, this book by the
inimitable Tom Peters is recommended. A Passion for Excellence
effectively challenges aspiring leaders to reach, discover, and grow.
Leadership, James M. Burns (New York: Harper & Row, 1978)
A recognized classic, this book deals with the transforming leader and
meshes well with the tough-minded paradigm of reversing the G
forces through pivotal leadership.
Corporate Cultures, Terence E. Deal and Allan A. Kennedy (Reading,
Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1982)
A valid addition to the classic literature of leadership. A seminal book,
it is must reading for all who seek stretching leadership concepts.
Peak Performers, Charles Garfield (New York: Morrow, 1986)
The first-rate research and writing of Charles Garfield has provided
some excellent and nostalgic affirmation for me. When Leonard
Hudson and I wrote Dare to Live Passionately (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Parker Publishing, 1966), our statement that the key to a great
life was "passionate commitment to a transcendent mission" was
figuratively received with yawns. "What does passion have to do with
management?" we were asked. When Charles Garfield told me of the
impact this particular statement had on his life, I was gratified indeed.
His role in presenting the efficacy of passion over passivity in
leadership is significant and valuable.
Quality Without Tears, Philip B. Crosby (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1984)
This book is helping lead the transition from blaming workers for
causing quality problems, to a healthy assessment of the manager or
leader as the prime source of needed improvement.
"MAC," Elliott Carlisle (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983)
This whimsical, humorous, and yet highly practical book is a must for
your reading list. A precursor to the one minute manager (Kenneth
Blanchard) genre, it is so pleasant, one realizes only belatedly the
hands-on value of its contents.
The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker (New York: Harper & Row,
1966)
Peter Drucker, the doyen of management writers has, of course,
developed a smorgasbord of good stuff. This one is my favorite.
Page 229
The Making of the Achiever, Allen Cox (New York: Dodd, Mead &
Co., 1984)
Makes practically no mention of leadership per se, and yet it is packed
with information. Items that mesh particularly well with the
philosophy of Tough-Minded Leadership have to do with the
executive's need and ability to be a giver, to make himself or herself
vulnerable, to experiment constantly, to make bold decisions, and to
"grab hold" of his or her unique strengths. Cox may be one of the
most underrated shapers of thought in America today.
American Spirit: Visions of a New Corporate Culture, Lawrence M.
Miller (New York: Morrow, 1984)
Don't miss this! Miller's writings clearly indicate that he "has been
there."
The Future 500, Craig R. Hickman and Michael A. Silver (New York:
New American Library, 1987)
An important addition to the leadership literature.
A truly excellent leadership publication is Executive Excellence,
published by The Institute of Principle-Centered Leadership in Provo,
Utah, which is headed by Stephen R. Covey, Chairman. Cutting-edge
authors regularly present provocative and stretching mind nutrients. I
am privileged to be in this group.
A few more fine selections sans specific comment are:
CEO: Corporate Leadership in Action, Harry Levin and Stuart
Rosenthal (New York: Basic Books, 1985)
The Will to Manage, Marvin Bower (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966)
Triad Power: The Coming Shape of Global Competition, Kenichi
Ohmae (New York: Free Press, 1985)
Organizational Culture and Leadership, Edgar H. Schein (San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985)
The Management Tactician, Edward C. Schleh (New York: McGrawHill, 1974)
The Natural Depth in Man, Wilson VanDusen (New York: Harper &
Row, 1972)
The Renewal Factor, Robert H. Waterman, Jr. (New York: Bantam
Books, 1987)
Excellence in Leadership, Frank Goble (New York: American
Management Association, 1972)
Page 231
INDEX
A
A-B-C Principle, 163
abdication, vs. delegation, 110
accountability, 38-39, 132, 137, 170-171
action plans, 3, 70, 107, 179-180
activity reports, vs. progress reports, 36
American Entrepreneurs Association, official credo of, 75
Art of Japanese Management, The (Pascale and Athos), 99
art of leadership, 1-2, 99
asking, 184
assignments, 47
Athos, Anthony G., The Art of Japanese Management, 99
attitude, 159
of leaders, xii
and team building, 107-108
B
Batten, Joe D.
Beyond Management by Objectives, 78
Tough-Minded Management, 90
Batten's law of communication, 62
Bauer, Arthur, 6
beauty, 183
behavior, of leaders, x
Bellisario, Marisa, 126
Bennis, Warren, Leaders, 35, 78, 127, 174
body English, 62
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 59
Borg-Warner Corporation, 145
bottom-up organization, 32
brainstorming, 86
Brown, Deaver, The Entrepreneur's Guide, 74
Bryant, Paul, 134
Burke, James E., 15
Business and Its Beliefs, A (Watson), xi, 4
business plan, 72-73
Page 232
C
candor, 131, 162
caring, 63-64, 169-170, 184
change, 4, 127-128, 159-173
Change Masters, The (Kanter), 80, 92
Churchill, Winston, 36
coercive power, 39
commitment, xi, 169
communication
Batten's law of, 62
case study in, 64-67
definition of, 59-60
dialogue vs., 165
face-to-face, tools for, 60-64
and performance appraisals, 38
of philosophy, missions, goals, 11-12
skills of, 59-67
vs. dialogue, 31
compensation, xii, 70
performance and, 12, 89, 128, 167
competition, 164
complexity, 164
computers, 27, 158, 202-208
for customer feedback network, 90
strengths banks in, 56, 88, 135
confidence, 88
consistency, 163
control, xi, 50-51
definition of, 80
of strengths, 138-139
coordination, 49-50
corporate culture, "P" pyramid and, 18-20
corporate executives, vs. entrepreneurs, 74-76
Covey, Stephen R., 26
criticism, 13
Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 155
culture, 17, 20
customer, as top priority, 2-3
cybernetic circle
of becoming, 14
of expective growth, 175-184
of leadership, 27-41
of motivation, 115
of operational effectiveness, 43-44
D
Davis, Tom, 142
decisions, 13
tough-minded, 39-40
defenses, 67
delegation, vs. abdication, 110
dialogue, vs. communication, 31, 165
discipline, 180
dissatisfaction, 170
diversification, 71
dreams, 177
driver, vs. leader, 4
Drucker, Peter
Effective Executive, The, 27
on strengths, 169
E
Edison, Thomas, 85
education
graduate business, 2
for human optimization, 155
Effective Executive, The (Drucker), 27
Einstein, Albert, 129
employee bill of rights, of Saga Administrative Corporation, 140
employees, 70
growth of, 104
entrepreneur, 68-76
credo of, 75
success of, 69-72
vs. corporate executive, 74-76
Entrepreneur's Guide, The (Brown), 74
equality in the workplace, ix
ethics, 123-124, 166
Eupsychian Management (Maslow), 69
example, leadership by, 141-149
excellence, 1, 40
excellent companies, ix
expectations, 32-33, 47-49, 128, 137, 139-140, 154, 162
high, 62-69
management by, 43-44
expective growth, cybernetic circle of, 175-184
expective leadership, 45-51
Expective Leadership System, 98
Page 233
F
facilitator, 96
faith, 181
fatigue, 153
fear, 88
feedback, xii, 38
from customers, 90
flabby management, 7
flexibility, 129, 137
forgiveness, 184
Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 30
G
gamesmanship, 170
Gardner, John W., No Easy Victories, 83, 122
Geneen, Harold, 68
on performance, 6
Getting the Best Out of Yourself and Others (Rodgers), 24, 82
G forces, 26-41, 150-158
negative, 33-34
positive, 3, 34-35, 209-213
positive and negative, 27
G-forces analysis, 191-202
Gilder, George, on the entrepreneur, 69
goals, 32-33, 178-179
orientation toward, 161
transcendent, 142-145
graduate business schools, 2, 155
gratitude, 181-182
growth, 6
expective, cybernetic circle of, 175-184
guidance committee, 96
H
Hale, Guy, on executives' goals, 85
Hansen, Marc, 142
hearing, vs. listening, 30-31
Heller, Robert, on strengths, 168-169
high expectations, 62-69
high tech/high touch, 5
Holtz, Lou, 106
hope, 181
Horton, Thomas R.
on successful chief executives, 8
"What Works for Me," 126
humor, 172-173
I
Iacocca, Lee, 78
individuality, 163
Industrial Housekeeping Management Systems, Inc., 139
information reporting, technology for optimum, 202-208
innovation, 85-91
breaking down barriers to, 88
fear and, 88
integrity, 64, 71, 123-126, 131, 166
leadership by, 12
International Business Machine Corp., xi
intuition, 128
investors, 70
involvement, 31-32
Isaacson, Portia, 126-127
J
Japan
performance style in, 25
productivity methods in, 10
judgments, 63
Jung, Carl, 7
K
Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, 155
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, The Change Masters, 80, 92
kinesics, 62
Kirkpatrick, Donald, on managing change, 159-160
L
laser technology, 156
leaders
as big people, 126-127
qualities of, 7-8
vs. drivers, 4
vs. managers, 2
vs. pushers, 111
Leaders (Bennis and Nanus), 35, 78, 174
leadership
art of, 1-2, 99
cybernetic circle of, 27-41
definition of, 35
by example, 141-149
Page 234
leadership (continued)
expective, x, 45-51, 98
by integrity, 12
Marriott pledge of, 19
passionate, 174-186
and power, 77-84
and productivity, 10-11
by renewal, 133-140
tough-minded, basic beliefs in, 14
in twenty-first century, 122-132
by walking around, 33
Lincoln, Abraham, 1
listening, 7, 137, 170
positive, 129
positive and negative, 61
vs. hearing, 30-31
Lookabaugh, Robert, on customer as priority, 3
love, 108, 145, 148-149, 181
M
management, ix
by directive, x
by example, 131
by expectations, 43-44
flabby, 7
by objectives, xi, 43
systems approach to, 42-51
managers, vs. leaders, 2
Marriott, Bill, Jr., 89
Marriott, J. Willard, 6
Marriott Corporation, 12-13, 89
leadership pledge of, 19
Maslow, Abraham, Eupsychian Management, 69
Matsushita, Konosuke, 98
McAlindon, Harold, 139-140
McNeil, Art, 77-78
McPherson, Rene, 15
meetings, 111
Miller, Lawrence, 159
mind, of leaders, x
mission, 19, 45
mistakes, 90, 130
model, xi
Morrisey, George, 42, 47
motivation, 12, 113
cybernetic circle of, 115
N
Naisbitt, John, 5, 75
Nanus, Burt, Leaders, 35, 78, 174
negative listening, 61, 170
neuroscience, 156
Noe, John, People Power, 139
No Easy Victories (Gardner), 83
O
obsolescence, 151
office politics, 165-166
Ogilvy, David, 14, 15-16
openness, 61
operational effectiveness, cybernetic circle of, 43-44
organization
bottom-up, 32
renewal, 56
by strengths, 53-54
top-down, 31
organizational philosophy, 30
Ouchi, William, on leadership and change, 143-144
P
participation, 31-32
Pascale, Richard T., The Art of Japanese Management, 99
passion, 185
passionate leadership, 174-186
Patterson, Dave, 141
People Power (Noe), 139
people primacy, 5
performance, 5-7, 24-25
and compensation, 89, 128, 167
definition of, 24
and evaluation, 171
increasing levels of, xii
Japanese style of, 25
measurements of, 36
monitoring, 36
self-evaluation of, 38
steps for increasing, 25
performance appraisals
and customers as priority, 3
rules for, 38
Page 235
performance standards, for personnel, 12
Perot, Boss, 69, 74, 78, 155
PEBT approach, 144
Peters, Tom, Thriving on Chaos, 88
philosophy, of organization, 30
physical fitness, 172
pilot projects, 88
planning, 45
positive G forces, 3, 209-213
positive listening, 61, 129, 170
positive reinforcement, xii, 63
positive thinking, 127, 131
Posner, Alan
on coercive power, 39
on leadership direction, 27
possibility teams, 86, 99-105
definition of, 102
implementation of, 104
vs. quality circles, 94
power
coercive, 39
definition of, 79-80
leadership and, 77-84
tools of, 80-82
true nature of, 82-84
of words, 82
"P" pyramid, 18-20, 70, 102
upside-down, 79
praise, xii
procrastination, 164
productivity
leadership and, 10-11
team, increasing, 11
progress reports, 70, 162-163
vs. activity reports, 36
promotion, 25
psychological wages, 130
pushers, vs. leaders, 111
Q
quality circles, 93-99
success with, 97-98
R
Randolph, Barry
on coercive power, 39
on leadership direction, 27
Rank Zerox Ltd., 90
reinforcement, 40, 63
renewal, 173
renewal organization, 56
renewing philosophy, 140
reports
activity vs. progress, 36
progress, 70, 162-163
strengths emphasis in, 138
research, on organizational needs, 45
respect, xi
Ritchie, J. Bonner, on business education, 155
Robbins, Anthony, Unlimited Power, 185
Rodgers, Buck, 14, 156
Getting the Best Out of Yourself and Others, 24, 82
Rogers, Carl, 31
on openness, 7
role orientation, 161
S
Saga Administrative Corporation, employee bill of rights of, 140
Sculley, John, 90
self-confidence, 61, 172
self-control, xi
self-discovery, 113-121
self-evaluation, of performance, 38
self-knowledge, 175
Senn, Larry, 20
sharing, 184
significance, 161
need for, 134
simplicity, 164
situational assessment guide, 189-208
standards, 180
strengths, xii, 47, 128, 168-169
affirmation of, 50
assignment of, 136
classification of, 135
control of, 138-139
development of, 135-136
identifying, 54-56, 135
measurement of, 138
organization by, 53-54